Crazy Weight-Loss Schemes Through The Ages

Did you resolve to get thin this year? Here are six absurd weight-loss programs of yore, plus one incredibly mean weight-gain ad from 1939.

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2013 is definitely going to be the year you honor your New Year’s resolution to diet and exercise more. Definitely! But before you spend money on work-out devices or weight-loss supplements, check out these seven old ads from the Popular Science archive, and remember that if something seems too good to be true, it’s probably going to embarrass you later. (Or it might be a scary amphetamine; see slide 6.)

Bonus: An ad for weight-gain tablets that promises to help “thousands of thin, tired, nervous people” pack on the pounds. Because everyone knows that “no skinny man has an ounce of sex appeal!”

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