Ansel Keys set out to understand how the body responds to extended deprivation. He focused on people suffering from malnutrition during the war, concentration camp survivors for example. But there's no easy way to do good experiments on starvation and its aftermath. In 2021 the journal Obesity Reviews devoted an entire issue to the legacy of Ansel Keys.
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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