Vitamania: Vitamins in America

Apple, Rima

ISBN 10: 0813522781 / ISBN 13: 9780813522784

Published by Rutgers University Press, 1996

About this Item

Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.

Seller Inventory # 00102317498

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Vitamania: Vitamins in America
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813522781
• ISBN 13: 9780813522784
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

"Have you taken your vitamins today?" That question echoes daily through American households. Thanks to intensive research in nutrition and medicine, the importance of vitamins to health is undisputed. But millions of Americans believe that the vitamins they get in their food are not enough. Vitamin supplements have become a multibillion-dollar industry. At the same time, many scientists, consumer advocacy groups, and the federal Food and Drug Administration doubt that most people need to take vitamin pills.

Vitamania tells how and why vitamins have become so important to so many Americans. Rima Apple examines the claims and counterclaims of scientists, manufacturers, retailers, politicians, and consumers from the discovery of vitamins in the early twentieth century to the present. She reveals the complicated interests--scientific, professional, financial--that have propelled the vitamin industry and its would-be regulators. From early advertisements linking motherhood and vitamin D, to Linus Pauling's claims for vitamin C, to recent congressional debates about restricting vitamin products, Apple's insightful history shows the ambivalence of Americans toward the authority of science. She also documents how consumers have insisted on their right to make their own decisions about their health and their vitamins.

Vitamania makes fascinating reading for anyone who takes--or refuses to take--vitamins. It will be of special interest to students, scholars, and professionals in public health, the biomedical sciences, history of medicine and science, twentieth-century history, nutrition, marketing, and consumer studies.

About the Author

Rima D. Apple teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she holds a joint appointment in the Department of Consumer Science and the Women's Studies Program. She is also the author of Mothers and Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890-1950 and editor of Women, Health, and Medicine in America: A Historical Handbook (paperback, Rutgers University Press).