India, May 14 -- In 19th-century India, corpulence became a political disqualifier. Colonial thinking increasingly linked bodily discipline with political authority. British writers portrayed the stoutness of wealthy Indian elites as a moral weakness, while the lean English body was celebrated as proof of discipline, modernity, and fitness to rule.

A little green-covered book, titled 'Corpulence and its Treatment on Physiological Principles', became quite a rage in Bombay and Poona in the winter of 1884. People began gifting the book to one another. A newspaper in Bombay, while commenting on its growing popularity, noted with amusement that people would present the book at Christmas, saying, "You do not really need this book, of course, ...