MR. AMERICA : HOW MUSCULAR MILLIONAIRE BERNARR MACFADDEN TRANSFORMED THE NATION THROUGH SEX, SALAD, AND THE ULTIMATE STARVATION DIET
by Mark Adams

Bernarr MacFadden was a brilliant, ambitious, eccentric genius, in the early part of the twentieth century, who influenced the world with his take on health and diet. From his humble upbringing, being orphaned at eight years of age, he would eventually become a multimillionaire with Physical Culture, a magazine that dictated exercise, how and what to eat, fasting, alternative medicine (he never went to a doctor) and sex education.
MacFadden would launch the New York Evening Graphic considered to be the worst newspaper in United States history. Walter Winchell was the gossip columnist. The sports writer was Ed Sullivan. At one point, Eleanor Roosevelt was hired to edit articles about babies.
Mr. America is a wonderful biography of a lost American entrepreneur. The book is inundated with a fascinating array of trivia. Upton Sinclair, Charles Atlas, Jack LaLanne, Fiorello LaGuardia, C.W. Post, John Harvey Kellogg and many others all make some kind of appearance within the pages.
The author, Mark Adams, is a terrific writer and has done incredible research. Check out the Acknowledgments on who he interviewed and what he found. The Notes and the Bibliography are quite extensive.
If you want to learn how to live a long and healthy life, read this book and have a good laugh at the same time.
Highly recommended.