How did we let a disease shape our beauty standards, keep feminism at bay, and catapult us into the weight loss culture we all know today? Though it sounds strange, the presence of tuberculosis in the 1700s catapulted our world society away from the thicker beauty standards of the Renaissance Era into the “thinner is beautiful” beauty standard that still prevails today. Read on to learn more!
What is Tuberculosis?
Tuberculosis, also known as TB, is a bacterial infection that commonly effects the lungs. The bacteria, called mycobacterium tuberculosis (MT), has been around more than 150 million years! This means it was around when the neolithic human the stone age version of us walked the earth.
It has had many names over the years… wasting, consumption, white plague, phthisis, scrofula, and Koch’s disease to name a few. In the Middle Ages, it was referred to as the “King’s Evil” and you could be healed by the royal touch. (we’ll get back to this in a sec).
In the beginning of the 1700s, tuberculosis, or TB for short, was commonly thought to be a “poor persons” disease… it effected a majority of people from lower classes due to crowded and poorly ventilated working environments that are commonly associated with tuberculosis transmission. Not too many people of the upper class or royalty were seen to be infected…. until it did!
Today, we know that TB can be spread by the coughing of bacteria into the air, therefore spreading the TB germs from one person to another… remember how I said we’ll reach back to that “king’s evil” idea earlier? Yeah… so you now have very sick people with active TB, travelling to go see the King, for them to touch you and hopefully cure you of the disease. Guess what? Now higher stature people, such as royals and dukes, started getting sick!
THIS is how it leads into our first topic of how TB has shaped our beauty standards of today…
The absolutely horrific part of this, is TB is not as pretty as I’m going to describe. It has been highly romanticized, but is really a tragic disease that causes you to cough up blood, lose weight, have chills, fever, and overall body weakness.. this lasts for YEARS until the infection finally takes your body and you pass on to your next lifetime. However, the “prettier” parts of this disease have lived on in our culture even today.
before the uptick of TB infection among notable people in the 1700s, the beauty standard among the rich and famous was described as “plump curvy, specifically with a double chin, for women, and strapping and athletic for men.” to put it into perspective, this was the renaissance time period from 1400-1700, which explains why renaissance paintings are mostly naked to show off their level of health and vitality.
This comes AFTER the black death, the bubonic plague of the 1300s that wiped out a third of Europe, so that focus on health and having enough to eat was really a important during the Renaissance! Alright, back to talking about Tuberculosis… (we’ll cover the bubonic plague another time).
Fast forward to the 1700s again, when the sick and dying are travelling to the castles to be touched by nobles and kings… Upstanding nobles and famous people started getting infected with TB, a wasting disease that makes you LOSE all those beautiful rolls, double chins and extra weight that high class socialites worked so hard to get!
So what happens? Do the powerful people in charge admit that because they are now wasting away from a previously thought “Poor Person’s Disease”, that their status reflects their health? NOPE.
We marched into the 1800s with a NEW beauty standard, reflecting the rosy cheeks, small fragile frame, big dilated eyes, and fine silky hair seen commonly in TB victims. now enter the Victorian era! Beauty standards, specifically for women, went from robust and hearty to lithe and fragile.
The Victorian era further romanticized the illness with the introduction of vampires during this time. I think everyone has read about or seen a vampire in a movie by now, but think about how they are described… beautiful, yes… but also pale, ruby cheeks, red lips, thin frame… did you know that the original vampire story was written in 1819, called the Vampyre, by john William Polidori?
Fun fact: Bram Stokers famous Dracula wasn’t written until 78 years later in 1897!
So we’re reflecting back a few hundred years, and its amazing to start seeing how those pieces fit together into today’s world. I think we sometimes forget that we are tied to our past history and culture, being shaped by everything that happens. Now, we’re talking about a disease that’s shaped our beauty standards since the Victorian era, more than 200 years ago!
When you think of the Victorian era, what comes to mind? For me, I think of those long beautiful flowing dresses women wore, as well as corsets. it was fashionable to have as TINY of a waist as possible, making it difficult to breath or do anything overly active.
Women who chose to wear corsets literally rearranged their internal organs to make their waist appear as small as possible! I remember watching gone with the wind with my mom as a kid, and she raved about how the main character, Scarlett O’Hara had a 18″ waist. gone with the wind was made in 1939, and reflects a story played out during the civil war in the American south, from 1861-1865.
Can we also just take a moment to reflect that the American Civil War and the Victorian era happened at the same time, in two different parts of the world? Let that sink in…
So why are we talking about corsets, and how does this play into TB? Well, do you think there were a lot of women in sports at this time? Do you think women were able to meet beauty standards AND exercise to a point where their bodies can be strong and healthy?
Short answer – no.
I haven’t tried it, but I imagine running in a corset is next to impossible, since it constricts your breathing. I think doing anything besides just sitting around and looking pretty is damn near impossible in a corset.
To make a point, this is specifically WOMEN’S beauty standards. Men’s standards of beauty meant being “strapping, strong and hearty” a standard that hasn’t changed all that much in this ENTIRE time period I’ve mentioned, from the 1300s until today… men did not have super constricting attire to meet beauty standards because they were still expected to be the main breadwinner of the household, perform hard labor, and provide for their families. They couldn’t AFFORD to have constricting clothing, so being big and strong meant you were a good husband, father, and provider.
Do you know what got rid of corsets? The discovery of a theory… that GERMS cause illness, not sin!
Before the 1900s, people didn’t realize you got sick from GERMS.. People who fell ill “deserved it” from God, or chalked it up to a matter of stature.
And as we’ve already talked about, once more “important” people started getting sick (i.e. kings and dukes), TB was romanticized and became something you WANTED to get- it went from a “poor person’s disease” to a “pretty person’s disease”. Now, only the most beautiful would die of TB… “They were so lucky”.
Remember that whole coughing up blood, fatigue, and the whole ‘your-body-wasting-away-for-years-painfully-before-you-die thing…
Now, enter- GERMS! There was a theory that corsets actually stopped the use of your full lungs (shocker) and therefore limited your body’s ability to get rid of the disease. The corsets limited the movement of your lungs as well as the circulation of the blood, making way for something they called a “health corset” that was elastic, and replaced the heavily boned corsets of the Victorian era.
Men’s fashion wasn’t entirely untouched by TB – during the 1800s, when women were squeezing themselves into corsets, men notably grew long facial hair, mustaches and extravagant side burns, mostly reflective of how unsafe an unclean razor could be.
By 1900, beards were deemed ‘dangerous’ due to the amount of germs that could be lurking QUOTE “in the Amazonian jungles of a well-whiskered face”.
“Measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, whooping cough, common and uncommon colds, and a host of other infectious diseases can be, and undoubtedly are, transmitted via the whisker route.”-Edwin Bowers, American doctor known for pioneering reflexology, 1916.
Since then, men preferred the clean shaven look, especially in doctors and surgeons, to appear more hygienic when caring for patients.
Another fun fact: In the 1900s, doctors started prescribing sunbathing as a treatment for TB, giving rise to the modern phenomenon of sunbathing!
In the 1950’s, medicine and vaccines had been invented for TB, and the rate of death drastically plummeted from 194 per 100,00 to just 6 to 7 in England, Wales and the United States. Tuberculosis is still a threat to this day, but still relatively rare compared to other infectious diseases.
Also, BIG shoutout to this woman named Florence Seibert. She was an American doctor in the 1930’s who developed a process to create a purified protein derivative (PPD) of tuberculin, a testing fluid for the TB skin test. Without her, we would not have a way to test people who carry the active TB strain!
So… this WHOLE story highlights how maybe that weight loss goal you had in mind was more through societal brainwashing that “thin is beautiful” – so how do we counter this type of thinking?
- Acknowledgement of your actual fitness goals instead of sociaetal beliefs of what is happy, healthy or correct. I know that when im working out, eating healthy and living my life, my weight sits a little bit higher than when im a cut diamond, 13% body fat at the end of a fight camp. Figuring out your goal of what you want to do with your body functionally is a good place to start in figuring out a direction to go. No matter what, whether you are happy with your weight, or wanting to lose a few pounds, all my clients I’ve worked with in the past all have one thing in common – they want to feel happy and confident in their bodies. What does that look like for you? Do you want to be able to do a pull up? do you want to run really fast? Goal-oriented programs are waaayyy more fun and effective than weight loss oriented programs!
- Track your metrics – Use the inBody scan at Untamed Fitness to properly track your body fat percentage, lean muscle mass, base metabolic rate, and more! It’ll even show your muscle imbalances from your left side to your right side and how you progress over the months.
- Having trouble setting a non-weight goal? Come in to Untamed Fitness! We’ll sit down with you in a one-on-one consult, pick your brain a bit on what you enjoy, and we can figure out together something that works best for you! (Book a consult here)
Alright, thanks for sticking around! See you next time.
References:
https://www.cdc.gov/world-tb-day/history/index.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-tuberculosis-shaped-victorian-fashion-180959029
https://www.britannica.com/science/tuberculosis/Tuberculosis-through-history
