Tapeworms and other inadvisable diet plans

This list of crank diets
illustrates, if nothing else, how willing Americans are to try any weight-loss methods except the correct ones. While most of these are innocuous, calorie-cutting schemes, there are a few ideas, like the tapeworm diet (parasite yourself thin!) and the Russian peasant diet (bet those starving proles never have to squeeze into their summer pants), that sound utterly unworkable, as well as insane. (And did the tapeworms really come “jar packed,” like it says in the old ad shown here?) The real kicker is the diet where you’re injected with urine from pregnant women, which is apparently some kind of fat-blasting nectar from Olympus.