In the early 20th century, researchers were pushing vitamins in much the same way. This is not say that vitamins are bad or we should or should not take them, but since I have stacks of old advertisements on the subject from an earlier project, I thought I would post some of the interesting ways vitamins were used/talked about when we had this conversation in the early to mid 20th century.
Mid 1920's: Companies like Squibbs published article advertisements touting cod liver oil as "bottled sunshine." Since marketing vitamins to mothers was the current marketing trend of the time, regardless of the content of the article children often appeared pictured. In the 1929 article pictured below, Squibbs announces that it now as a mint flavored cod liver oil that "will appeal to older children."
1930: Sun Wheat develops a vitamin cookie and takes out a full page ad in the Chicago Tribune to promote it. While still aimed at mother's, the companies creation of a "cookie" reveals the shift in advertising toward children. The article blames poor health of the children on mother's who fail at "coaxing" children to eat healthy foods and suggests that children will no longer be denied good health because the children naturally love them.
In May 1940: A New York Times article titled "Nazis Guard Soldier's Diets" reported on the Third Reich's attention to diet and employment of vitamins and careful meal planning for soldiers, pointing to the army's long marches as evidence of the success of the program. Vitamins were described as a modern type of "warfare."
Feb 1942: NYT reports on a meeting the Women's Federation at the Hotel Astor. During the meeting, the invited speaker claimed that the Japan's understanding of vitamins lead to it's imperialism. He told the crowd,
women are asleep in thier kitchens just as we were asleep at Pearly Harbor...The war lords of Japan can smile sardonically at our carelessness [in overcooking vegetables], for they know what this food chemical can do.In addition to nutrition being responsible for Japan's recent successes, lack of proper nutrition is claimed to drive prostitution and venereal disease. A reprsentative of the State Department told the women that "a bomb can be no more devistating than the slow undermining of a child's health and nervous system by malnutrition, poor home conditions, and inadequate care."
May 1942: The New York Times published an article called "Foods that Build Courage." The article tells of the British governments requirement that breads be fortified a year earlier and the recent interest by the US government in a similar program. In addition to the very oddly placed cartoon of Uncle Sam in a food lab (adjacent to a menu that suggests lamb kidneys and bacon for dinner), the article suggests that it is the "housewives" job to do with the government has not been able to accomplish in order to make sure that their families "have sufficient stamina for whatever the new year may bring." Since the diet being suggested is encouraging B1, with the exception of it's promotion of small amounts of newly enriched flour, it sounds more like the South Beach Diet.
Around the same time, the Chicago Tribune published an article about the correct way to toast bread (I'm not kidding). Apparently there was a widespread fear that all of these new "vitamin" foods were chemically unstable. This is not really surprising since a train derailment in 1910 had revealed that cereal companies where "adulterating" their products with items such as crushed peanut shells and numerous other products were using fraudulent claims in marketing.
In 1944: The Florida Citrus Commission dubbed grapefruits "the commando fruit" and used images of soldiers and young children. The company noted that "Uncle Same has set aside the entire supply of canned grapefruit sections and most of the canned orange juice, blended juice and concentrates" and implied that consuming the civilian juices every day would keep people healthy and strong when and if "danger" struck at home.
My favorite part of this ad, has to be the line at the bottom that declares:
under skies alive with screaming dive bombers--over seas infested with treacherous wolf packs--millions of cans of Florida Grapefruit juice have followed our boys to the ends of the earth--to supply them with precious vitamin C.I'm picturing bottle of juice with little uniforms, but I don't think that was the effect they were going for.
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