Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture

Author:   Rima Apple
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
ISBN:  

9780813522784


Pages:   280
Publication Date:   01 June 1996
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Out of print, replaced by POD   Availability explained
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Vitamania: Vitamins in American Culture


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Overview

""Have you taken your vitamins today?"" That question echoes daily through American households. Thanks to intensive research in nutrition and medicine, the importance of vitamins to health is undisputed. But millions of Americans believe that the vitamins they get in their food are not enough. Vitamin supplements have become a multibillion-dollar industry. At the same time, many scientists, consumer advocacy groups, and the federal Food and Drug Administration doubt that most people need to take vitamin pills. Vitamania tells how and why vitamins have become so important to so many Americans. Rima Apple examines the claims and counterclaims of scientists, manufacturers, retailers, politicians, and consumers from the discovery of vitamins in the early twentieth century to the present. She reveals the complicated interests--scientific, professional, financial--that have propelled the vitamin industry and its would-be regulators. From early advertisements linking motherhood and vitamin D, to Linus Pauling's claims for vitamin C, to recent congressional debates about restricting vitamin products, Apple's insightful history shows the ambivalence of Americans toward the authority of science. She also documents how consumers have insisted on their right to make their own decisions about their health and their vitamins. Vitamania makes fascinating reading for anyone who takes--or refuses to take--vitamins. It will be of special interest to students, scholars, and professionals in public health, the biomedical sciences, history of medicine and science, twentieth-century history, nutrition, marketing, and consumer studies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rima Apple
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
Imprint:   Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.367kg
ISBN:  

9780813522784


ISBN 10:   0813522781
Pages:   280
Publication Date:   01 June 1996
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of print, replaced by POD   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufatured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

"Introduction: ""Perhaps your diet is too modern"": the discovery of avitaminosis ""They need it now"": popular science and advertising in the interwar period ""To protect the interest of the public"": vitamins, marketing, and research ""Superior knowledge"": pharmacists, grocers, physicians, and Linus Pauling Miles one-a-day: the history of a vitamin dynasty Acnotabs: scientific evidence in the marketplace ""Millions of consumers are being misled"": the Food and Drug Administration and consumer protection ""Preserve our health freedom"": science in consumer politics ""Intensity"" makes the difference: vitamins in the political process Conclusion: vitamania?: vitamins in late twentieth-century United States"

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Author Information

Rima D. Apple teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she holds a joint appointment in the Department of Consumer Science and the Women's Studies Program. She is also the author of Mothers and Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890-1950 and editor of Women, Health, and Medicine in America: A Historical Handbook (paperback, Rutgers University Press).

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