Ever wondered about the history of diets? Despite the obesity crisis being a relatively new problem, turns out we’ve always been vain buggers trying to reach physical perfection. The methods of doing so have varied wildly, with doctors, companies and people who just really like cabbage soup vying to come up with the next new fad.

This fascinating infographic was sent to us by GloTech, and although we’re still trying to figure out why an appliance repair company made this, we thought you’d like it too.

According to the research that accompanies this infographic, 45% of us are watching what we eat in the run-up to summer (got to get that summer bod, eh?).

Our advice if that’s you? There’s a reason why all the sane-sounding diets below focus on upping the vegetables and lean proteins, although William the Conqueror’s method of simply lying in bed drinking until the weight fell off does sound appealing…

The history of diets

If you’re interested in reading more about the weird ways people lost weight, you can delve into the past with our look at how we lost weight in the past century here.