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"Despite its dubious beginnings, fad-dieting gained mass appeal in the 19th century. In 1829, Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham touted the Graham Diet - centered on caffeine-free drinks and vegetarian cuisine, and supplemented by the eponymous Graham Cracker - as a cure for not just obesity but masturbation (and the subsequent blindness it was thought to cause.) The diet became so popular that the students of Oberlin College were forced onto it for a brief period in the 1830s before they successfully rebelled through mass dissent in 1841. Thirty-five years later, an English casketmaker named William Banting became famous by pioneering the concept of a low-carbohydrate diet, which helped him lose 50 lbs. He published his results in the 1864 "Letter on Corpulance," and the plan became so popular that "banting" became a synonym for dieting across Britain. "