Why weren't Victorian upper class women fat?

[waltzingparrot]

They sat around drinking tea, playing the piano, embroidering, reading. Just the odd amble round a park, occasional dance.

How did they stay slim with their tiny waists?

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

‘, but would I have the freedom to go to the kitchen and ask for a snack when I fancy one?‘

You would but your servants would judge you.

Would I care if I was the lady of the house though? Could their gossip really harm me?

‘Would I care if I was the lady of the house though? Could their gossip really harm me?‘

Ooh, interesting question. I expect to some extent it would depend on your personality and upbringing and how it relates to your current circumstances. Did you grow up in an establishment with as many staff as you have now or have you married up? Are you confident in managing your servants or secretly rather scared of them? Is your cook the motherly sort who likes feeding people or given to silent disapproval?

I don’t think it would ‘harm’ you, @Gwenhwyfar, in any objective sense — all the actual power is yours as mistress — but, as witnessed when living in the ME among Brits with live-in domestic help on a pittance, it’s perfectly possible for the comparatively powerless to express subtle mockery or judgement when living in your house and observing you up close all the time. Victorian servants lived cheek by jowl with their employers and knew exactly what and how much they ate, when their periods were, when they had sex, how their relationships with their husbands and children were etc etc.

Didn't they deliberately infect themselves with tape worms to keep thin? And bathe in ice to burn calories?

That’s a very good way to put it MareMare.

@Cakeonthefloor

Didn't they deliberately infect themselves with tape worms to keep thin? And bathe in ice to burn calories?

Article upthread on the tapeworm thing concludes they probably didn’t.

Corsets. No processed food. Lots of boiled vegetables.

Would I care if I was the lady of the house though? Could their gossip really harm me?

Your maid might talk to other maids (especially at house parties and so on,) and then they might tell your peers.

This article about Elizabeth of Austria (she who was mother to Crown Prince Rudolf who died in a double suicide with his 17 year old lover, the Mayerling Incident) is interesting bearing in mind she followed a strict diet and exercise regime. In her older age she still managed to achieve a waist measurement of 19 inches (with the aid of corsetry).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Elisabeth_of_Austria#Physical_regimen

“The empress developed extremely rigorous and disciplined exercise habits. Every castle she lived in was equipped with a gymnasium, the Knights' Hall of the Hofburg was converted into one, mats and balance beams were installed in her bedchamber so that she could practise on them each morning, and the imperial villa at Ischl was fitted with gigantic mirrors so that she could correct every movement and position. She took up fencing in her 50s with equal discipline.”

Like any period in time, there were all sorts of shapes and sizes, not all UC women were slim. The ‘fashion’ was of course to be skinny, pale and delicate in appearance, which is why TB wasn’t seen as such a bad thing to develop in some circles, as, despite its seriousness, suffers lost a lot of weight and took on a pallid, fragile appearance, with ‘shiny’ dilated eyes. The feminine beauty ideal.

Some UC women took slimming concoctions, often contain dangerous ingredients such as arsenic and cocaine!

Thanks all for the fascinating replies.

I started the thread because I'd been looking through a box of old family photos and all the women from Victorian times looked whippet thin; not just at the waist, but they weren't fat of face either.

It appears I don't have those family genes although I do have a post Victorian snacking habit.

tbh, I've struggled to get passed the 'sanitised tapeworm' as a means of staying slim comment.

Just in Tesco earlier - one aisle all fizzy drinks, one for crisps, one for sweets/biscuits. One side of the freezer aisle dedicated to ice cream. Half the crisp aisle comprised of large 'sharing' bags. There's also an in- store bakery, alcohol and cake aisle. Basically, 30-40% of their stock is fat- and sugar-laden shit.

Giving birth to 10+ kids?

Chares Dickens was not upper class but when he married it was to a slim young thing. After ten children she was decidedly overweight. Dickens presumably thught this was nothing to do with him and dumped her for an eighteen year old actress Women came in all shapes and sizes, .upper class women included. Many were painted in a flattering way when fairly young. Good, boned corsetry was pretty expensive then znd now, so lower class womenwere usually portrayed as " plump".

@grannieali

Chares Dickens was not upper class but when he married it was to a slim young thing. After ten children she was decidedly overweight. Dickens presumably thught this was nothing to do with him and dumped her for an eighteen year old actress Women came in all shapes and sizes, .upper class women included. Many were painted in a flattering way when fairly young. Good, boned corsetry was pretty expensive then znd now, so lower class womenwere usually portrayed as " plump".

He was an unbelievable shit to poor Catherine Dickens — irrationally blamed her for having their ten children, took out ads in newspapers to deny rumours of his infidelity and criticise her parenting, tried to have her institutionalised as insane, left her for a teenage actress 27 years younger than him and barely older than his daughter etc etc.

Even 40 years ago folk were thinner.

My mum used to have pie and chips every night for tea but used to walk 3 miles there and 3 back to work every day! Hence being 9 stone

In most eras being dat was seen as a status symbol that you were wealthy but I'd imagine:
Less processed foods
Less fat/sugar because of the above
Not eating/drinking because of the corsets
Smaller portion sizes
More walking
Pressure to marry and "look good" in order to get a hubby ...

Fat*

All the women in John Singer Sargent paintings were slim and pale, his two most famous paintings of society UC women were lady Agnew and the Whyndham sisters. Lady Agnew’s waist is tiny ! a bit larger than her neck.
Being thin was probably desirable and only attainable by the Wealthy back then.

I'm not sure there was less fat. Pretty much everything was cooked with butter or lard if possible - but there wouldn't have been hydrogenated fats and so on like in many foods today.

I'm glad you mentioned body changes as a result of childbirth, grannieali & maremare. I read that in the mid Victorian era married woman had an average of six children but many of them would have gone through more pregnancies than this.

A few posters mentioned photos of 'stout' relatives born in the Victorian period. I automatically wondered how old they were in those photos. I hardly dare write this but I think there were fewer expectations on middle aged and older women to continue to look good in those times. I think the big bloomers and skirts belonged to older women.

Thanks so much for posting this waltzingparrott. It's an intriguing thread!

Fabulous thread!!

For working class women, or even middle class the 'housework' was better than a gym workout.

If you watch the shows where they 'send people back in time' there is so much hard work. Imagine making bread from scratch every day.

'Further back in time for dinner' has the delightful 'mock turtle soup' which Debbie has to make from a cow's head.

I know the OP was talking about upper class women but I think they would still be quite active.

To get anywhere you had to walk, take a carriage or ride.

If you were looking after one of the big houses you would do quite a lot of walking just interacting with various servants. A walk to a kitchen garden could be quite a distance.

Just getting dressed would be quite a task and you would be doing that at least twice a day.

Also dancing was popular, waltzes and polkas are not low energy and add to that the weight of your dress and underwear you could be doing the equivalent of an aerobics class wearing 10 kg weights.

"He was an unbelievable shit to poor Catherine Dickens — irrationally blamed her for having their ten children, took out ads in newspapers to deny rumours of his infidelity and criticise her parenting, tried to have her institutionalised as insane, left her for a teenage actress 27 years younger than him and barely older than his daughter etc etc."

Didn't he also not allow her to see her children much (custody being given to him as was the law at the time I think).
There was a documentary about how shit he was as a husband.

@EBearhug

Would I care if I was the lady of the house though? Could their gossip really harm me?

Your maid might talk to other maids (especially at house parties and so on,) and then they might tell your peers.

I suppose that's how we all know about Diana's bulimia.