Elliot D. Abravanel is an American

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

and diet counselor, who developed the ''Body Type'' system for weight loss and overall wellness. Based on his experience with the "Skinny School" program in the 1970s and 1980s, the Body Type program is described in the book ''Dr. Abravanel's Body Type Diet and Lifetime Nutrition Plan'', first published in 1983.Butler, Kurt. (1992). ''A Consumer's Guide to "Alternative Medicine": A Close Look at Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Faith-healing, and Other Unconventional Treatments''. Prometheus Books. pp. 4-6.

The Body Type program

The Body Type program asserts that there are four major glands in the human body (pituitary, thyroid, adrenal, and gonadal) and that each individual has one "dominant gland".

Ann Louise Gittleman Ann Louise Gittleman (born June 27, 1949) is an American author and proponent of alternative medicine, especially fad diets. She regards herself as a nutritionist. Gittleman has written more than two dozen books and is known for ''The Fat Flush ...

stated that Abravanel developed these ideas as an expansion of speculations by Henry G. Bieler and noted that this was done, "Without directly monitoring the behavior of any gland..."

Criticism

Abravanel's ''Body Type'' system is dismissed by medical

health professionals A health professional, healthcare professional (HCP), or healthcare worker (sometimes abbreviated as HCW) is a provider of health care treatment and advice based on formal training and experience. The field includes those who work as a nurse, physi ...

quackery Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or Ignorance, ignorant medicine, medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or public ...

. Science writer Kurt Butler has written that Abravanel and his wife Elizabeth A. King have presented "no evidence to support their claims that specific foods stimulate specific glands and eventually exhaust them, that each individual has a 'dominant gland' at the root of any weight problem, or that herbal teas help control weight by soothing the errant gland and moderating its cravings. All this is nonsense dressed in scientific-sounding terminology."

Dietitian A dietitian, medical dietitian, or dietician is an expert in identifying and treating disease-related malnutrition and in conducting medical nutrition therapy, for example designing an enteral tube feeding regimen or mitigating the effects of ...

Charlotte Bonds wrote that Abravanel's book "nourishes one of most predominant myths about being overweight" and recommended "leaving it alone".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abravanel, Elliot 20th-century American physicians Living people Pseudoscientific diet advocates Year of birth missing (living people)