Peter Nowak

The current obesity epidemic may have escalated in the last 30 years but body-shaping, dieting and the fear of fat all have a long and wretched history.2. epidemic:（壞事的）陡增，泛濫；escalate: （使）變得更糟，（使）變得更嚴(yán)重；wretched: 令人苦惱的，討厭的。The ideal body has always been revered3. revere: 尊崇，崇敬。in the arts, medicine, politics and philosophy, and that ideal has changed over time.

It has swung like a pendulum from the 16th century, when women (and some men) squeezed themselves into metal and bone corsets that restricted movement and risked crushing internal organs, to the 18th century, when figures were free in flimsy empireline shifts.4. 情況一直在變。16世紀(jì)，女性（及部分男性）冒著內(nèi)臟被壓壞的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，拼命把自己塞進(jìn)用金屬和骨頭制成的緊身褡里，行動(dòng)十分不便；可到了18世紀(jì)，人們又改穿寬松輕薄的高腰服飾了。swing like a pendulum:（觀(guān)點(diǎn)）搖擺不定，pendulum指鐘擺；squeeze: 擠進(jìn)，擠入；corset:（尤指舊時(shí)女子用來(lái)束腰以顯得苗條的）緊身褡；crush: 壓傷，壓壞； flimsy: 輕薄的；empire-line: 帝國(guó)線(xiàn)，即高腰線(xiàn)，指將服裝收腰的線(xiàn)條移到胸圍底處。In the 19th century, Victorian women were trussed up again into that period’s desirably fecund shape, all bustles and breasts.5. truss up: 捆，綁；desirably: 令人向往地，合意地；fecund:多產(chǎn)的，肥沃的，文中指豐滿(mǎn)的；bustle:（舊時(shí)女裙后部的）撐架，襯墊；breast: 胸部。Then, after the First World War, when women had rejoined the workforce and secured the vote, the straight-up-and-down flapper figure was all the rage, and curves were bound and flattened.6. 后來(lái)一戰(zhàn)告終，女性重新成為勞動(dòng)力，擁有選舉權(quán)，平板式身材開(kāi)始風(fēng)靡，身體曲線(xiàn)便被束住，不再凸顯。workforce:勞動(dòng)人口，勞動(dòng)力； flapper:〈口〉（20世紀(jì)20年代后期穿短裙、留短發(fā)、思想被認(rèn)為十分現(xiàn)代的）時(shí)髦女子；be all the rage: 時(shí)髦，非常流行；bind: 束，圍裹； flatten: 使變平。

一直以來(lái)，完美身材都備受推崇。可時(shí)代不同，完美身材的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)也不同。16世紀(jì)推崇細(xì)腰，女人們把自己塞進(jìn)緊身褡；18世紀(jì)，女人們又穿起寬松的高腰裙來(lái)；19世紀(jì)的女人又以豐滿(mǎn)為美；一戰(zhàn)后，女人們紛紛裹緊自己，不露曲線(xiàn)；二戰(zhàn)后，豐乳肥臀又成新潮……如今，人們又不擇手段地努力瘦身。我們想要豐滿(mǎn)，食品行業(yè)就推出高熱量產(chǎn)品，而當(dāng)肥胖漸成問(wèn)題，食品行業(yè)又推出瘦身產(chǎn)品，它似乎是永遠(yuǎn)的贏家……

In the 1920s, the medical profession began to worry that the new “slimming mania” might be dangerous, and it sent the press into a frenzy: women with boyish figures could turn into lesbians, they screamed, society will wither—all this as they sold advertising space for obesity cures, scales,corsets and diet devices.7. mania: 癖好，狂熱；press: 報(bào)刊，新聞業(yè)；frenzy:一陣狂熱；lesbian: 女同性戀者；wither: 萎縮，消失；scale: 秤。After the Second World War,things changed again and “sweater girls” such as Jayne Mans field and Jane Russell personi fied the new shape,their natural curvaceousness emphasised by pointy Playtex bras and Vanishette roll-ons: rubber was no longer required for the war effort so a new outlet had to be found.8. sweater girl: 穿著緊身上衣突出胸部的女郎；Jayne Mansfield: 簡(jiǎn)·曼斯菲爾德（1933—1967），美國(guó)女影星，20世紀(jì)五六十年代好萊塢著名性感女星；Jane Russell: 簡(jiǎn)·拉塞爾（1921—2011），美國(guó)女影星，20世紀(jì)四五十年代好萊塢著名性感女星；personify: 是……的化身；curvaceousness:（女子）有曲線(xiàn)美，豐滿(mǎn)而勻稱(chēng)；roll-on: 女子彈力緊身胸衣；rubber: 橡膠；outlet: 市場(chǎng)，銷(xiāo)路。

Preferred body shapes alter as societies change, and when the women’s liberation movement arrived in the 1960s and 70s, restrictive underwear was chucked out once more.9. 時(shí)代社會(huì)不同，人們偏愛(ài)的身材就不同，20世紀(jì)60年代和70年代，婦女解放運(yùn)動(dòng)興起，束身內(nèi)衣再次被拋棄。chuck out: 驅(qū)逐。Now, while many of us seem terri fied of bulges and dimples, many more of us are spilling out of our clothes.10. 現(xiàn)在盡管很多人害怕太胖，但更多的人已經(jīng)成了肥胖的一員。bulge: 凸出部分，指（身體）發(fā)胖的部位；dimple: 淺坑，文中指因肥胖穿衣勒出的凹痕；spill out of clothes: 指因太胖而肉溢出了衣服。It’s a cultural confusion born of con flicting opinions, moral panics,11. be born of: 源于；panic: 恐慌。economics and environment.

The beginnings of mass media in the 19th century, with its nascent celebrity culture, diet adverts and seductive before-and-after images, fed and bred the shame and anxiety that drives body dissatisfaction and dieting.12. nascent: 新生的，新興的；seductive: 有誘惑力的，吸引人的；breed: 招致，引發(fā)。An avalanche of novel eating regimens, slimming foods,lotions, potions, pummelling, mastication and electrical devices hit the hungry market.13. 一時(shí)間，市場(chǎng)上涌現(xiàn)出各種新式減肥方法：飲食養(yǎng)生法、減肥食品、瘦身洗液、減肥藥、拍打、咀嚼以及各式電子產(chǎn)品。 an avalanche of sth.: 突然出現(xiàn)的大量事物；novel: 新奇的，新穎的；regimen: 養(yǎng)生之道；lotion: 洗液，洗劑；potion:（有特效或魔力的）飲劑；pummelling:（用拳頭等）連續(xù)擊打；mastication: 咀嚼。High colonic irrigations（高位結(jié)腸灌洗）and apronectomies（腹壁脂肪切除）were offered in the underworld of medicine, where doctors eagerly exploited women willing to suffer pain and prolonged discomfort,14. underworld: 下層社會(huì)，黑社會(huì)；prolonged: 持續(xù)很久的，長(zhǎng)期的；discomfort: 不舒服，不適。and to spend the last of their own money on having their excess fat cut away. These unscrupulous surgeons believed their patients had a “mental twist”—but that didn’t stop them pro fiting from their insecurities.15. 這些黑心醫(yī)生覺(jué)得那些病人肯定“心理扭曲”—— 但這并不能阻止他們利用病人的不安全感并從中牟利。unscrupulous: 不講道德的，不擇手段的。This was happening over 100 years ago, yet it remains big business today.

簡(jiǎn)·拉塞爾

In the early 20th century you could buy tape worm16. tape worm: 絳蟲(chóng)。pills and, the advertisement promised,“Eat, eat, eat” before taking another pill to kill off the worm. You could swallow laxative tablets（瀉藥）, smoke cigarettes (secretly) laced with appetite suppressants（厭食劑）, bathe in Every Woman’s Flesh Reducer, wear skin-macerating rubber knickers, suffer an enema（灌腸劑）or be massaged until your fat oozed through your pores like “mashed potato through a colander”.17. be laced with: 被摻入……；macerate: 使消瘦；knickers:女用內(nèi)褲，短襯褲；massage: 按摩，推拿；ooze: 滲出，冒出；pore:（皮膚上的）毛孔；mashed potato:土豆泥；colander:（過(guò)濾或淘洗食物用的）濾器，漏勺。Over-the-counter18. over-the-counter:（藥）非處方的。diet drugs were big news.Some were useless, containing Epsom salts（瀉鹽）,sugar and soap（脂肪酸鹽）, but a few were downright dangerous, with poisonous ingredients to speed up your metabolism（新陳代謝）.19. downright: 完全地，徹底地；poisonous: 有毒的；ingredient: 組成成分。There were new synthetic hormones（合成激素）and, disastrously,dinitrophenol（二硝基酚）, a carcinogenic dying agent used in First World War explosives and now,20. carcinogenic: 致癌的；agent: 作用劑；explosive: 爆炸物，炸藥。tragically,back in the news again.

The consensus21. consensus: 一致意見(jiàn)，共識(shí)。now is that increasing obesity rates are likely to be the result of a changing food environment—where, what and how much people choose to eat and how much they move. The food industry has engineered products to appeal to our biological cravings for substances that increase our risk of major chronic diseases: calorie-dense and nutrient-poor.22. 食品產(chǎn)業(yè)迎合我們的飲食欲望，推出一系列“熱量過(guò)高、營(yíng)養(yǎng)價(jià)值極低”的食品，我們患上慢性疾病的幾率也因此增大。engineer: 策劃，謀劃；appeal to: 吸引（某人），引起（某人）的興趣；craving: 渴望，渴求；chronic:（疾?。┞缘?；nutrient: 養(yǎng)分，營(yíng)養(yǎng)物。And it is all increasingly available, cheaply, and attractively packaged.

The food environment is radically23. radically: 根本地，徹底地。different from what it was just a generation ago. Like the tobacco and alcohol industries, many food and drink companies put all the emphasis on individual responsibility so that the health-related costs of their products are dumped24. dump: 把（工作）推卸給（某人）。straight back on to the tax-paying consumers. The diet industry that so fostered our obsession with fat will now be the one to pro fit from the obesity epidemic.25. 食品行業(yè)讓我們迷戀上高熱量食品，導(dǎo)致肥胖問(wèn)題越來(lái)越嚴(yán)重，現(xiàn)在，他們又開(kāi)始利用我們的肥胖問(wèn)題牟取利益。foster: 助長(zhǎng)，培養(yǎng)；obsession: 著魔，迷戀。