Elliot D. Abravanel is an American

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

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 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 Plan'', a "detox" d ...

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..." According to Abravanel, men can be P-types, T-types, or A-types, based on the dominant gland, and women can be P-types, T-types, A-types or G-types (only women can be G-types due to the purported overall influence that a woman's sexual glands can have on her body). An individual's dominant gland is claimed to influence his or her body shape, and the glandular secretions that purportedly influence personality, sleeping schedule, metabolic activity, and other characteristics. Certain foods and exercises are claimed promote or inhibit activity among one or more glands, and Abravanel asserts that people tend to feed their dominant gland first and foremost. Through diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes, the Body Type system claims to enable an individual to move into greater balance, purportedly providing that person with greater energy reserves and a more balanced personality allegedly leading to less stress and increased overall effectiveness.

Criticism

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

health professionals A health professional, healthcare professional, or healthcare worker (sometimes abbreviated 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, physician (suc ...

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

. 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."

References

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