Lulu Hunt Peters

[3] Peters was the first woman to intern at Los Angeles County General Hospital, and led its pathology lab before becoming Chair of the Los Angeles California Federation of Women’s Clubs' public health committee — a role that gave her “more power than the entire city health office” according to a contemporaneous account.

[3] At the time, this quantification was mostly regarded as a way to identify foods with high energy content to combat malnutrition; Peters appears to have been the first person to have recognized that using this information to intentionally reducing calorie intake would lead to weight loss.

Along with presenting a solution for American women, Peters suggested that weight control was a way to support the troops from the homefront in the context of World War I food shortages.

[3] She suggested that dieting meant having complete self-control and recommended that women organize Watch Your Weight Anti-Kaiser Classes to obtain it.

Beginning in 1922, Peters became a radio lecturer, giving a series of talks about diet and health over station WJZ, then in Newark NJ.

[10] In addition, she also was a popular public speaker, giving motivational talks all over the United States, including at facilities that specialized in weight loss.

Peters's book Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories,[17] targeted specifically to American women, became extremely popular, selling 2 million copies.

She explains the importance of balancing food intake and energy used, and suggests a number of exercises, supported with simple cartoons.

Her book included estimates of food portions that would contain 100 calories, based on research in a variety of technical publications that were not available to the general reader.

Under her system, a person of Peters's height could eat whatever she wanted, as long as she maintained a strict diet of 1,200 calories a day.

She captivated her readers by letting them know that she knew the shame in being fat (having once weighed 200 lbs), and the sacrifice that dieting entailed, first hand.

The diet would also help prevent food shortages; by counting calories, women would be showing patriotism and improving themselves at the same time.