The National Institutes of Health organized something called the Calorie Study. 143 adults signed up for two years of stringent dieting. After all that effort, the volunteers on average only got halfway to their goal. What we know about the human body of a normal weight person reacting to starvation is based on the Minnesota experiment.
Lester Glick’s year in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment cost him his hoped-for career and also left him with an eating disorder for the rest of his life. But like many of the other volunteers, he said he would have done it again in a heartbeat. Revisionist History explores the scientific legacy of this experiment, and asks whether it’s time to reimagine our understanding of sacrifice.
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