Lulu Hunt Peters (1873–1930) was an American doctor and author who wrote a featured newspaper column entitled Diet and Health, which she followed up with a best-selling book, Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories. She was the first person to widely popularize the concept of counting calories as a method of weight loss. It was also the first weight-loss book to become a bestseller. Early life and education Lulu E. Hunt was one of three children born to Thomas and Alice Hunt of Milford, Maine. She attended the Maine State Normal School in Castine before moving to California. She married Louis H. Peters in Los Angeles in 1899, and in 1909 graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from the University of California. Career For a number of years, Dr. Hunt wrote a featured newspaper column entitled Diet and Health for the Central Press Association, which supplied content for about 400 newspapers nationwide. In 1918, she published the diet book Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories, named after and based on her column and with illustrations by her nephew, Dawson Hunt Perkins (1907-1976), son of Henry Addison Perkins, Jr. and Anna Lydia Hunt). It presented the concept of calorie reduction as the best form of weight loss/watching weight to American women, who were wanting to conform to the new-found body image "thin is in". Along with presenting a solution for American women, Peters suggested that weight control was an active form of patriotism in the context of World War I. She suggested that dieting meant having complete self-control and recommended that women organize Watch Your Weight Anti-Kaiser Classes to obtain it. Peters followed her own advice/health regimens and credited them, along with her regular attendance at women's suffragist rallies, for her health and self-sufficiency. Shortly after her book was published, Peters traveled to Bosnia, where she served with the Red Cross. When she returned to the United States, she was pleasantly surprised to learn that she was a best-selling author. She published a later edition describing her life after the book. Beginning in 1922, Peters became a radio lecturer, giving a series of talks about diet and health over station WJZ, then in Newark NJ. She continued to give radio health talks for the next several years. In addition, she also was a popular public speaker, giving motivational talks all over the United States, including at facilities