author
Lulu Hunt Peters
1873–1930
A physician who turned health advice into a national conversation, she helped introduce millions of readers to calorie counting through her bestselling writing. Her work sits at the crossroads of popular medicine, journalism, and the long history of American diet culture.
1 Audiobook
Diet and Health; With Key to the Calories
by Lulu Hunt Peters
About the author
Born in Milford, Maine, Lulu Hunt Peters became an American physician, public health educator, and writer whose name became widely known in the early 20th century. She studied medicine at the University of California and later earned an A.B. from the University of Southern California before establishing her practice in Los Angeles.
She wrote the syndicated newspaper column Diet and Health and expanded it into the bestselling 1918 book Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories. That book is often remembered for bringing calorie counting to a broad popular audience in the United States and for showing how strongly her practical, conversational style connected with everyday readers.
Peters was more than a medical writer: she was part of a moment when doctors, newspapers, and self-help publishing were beginning to shape modern ideas about food, weight, and wellness. Today, she is remembered both as a pioneering woman physician and as an influential, sometimes controversial figure in the history of dieting.