The Hungry Gene: The Science of Fat and the Future of Thin

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book about an Important Problem
Review: This is a very interesting book regarding the current scientific research on the biological and social causes of obesity and what society is doing about it (not that much). It covers a variety of topics such as what genomics research has discovered to date, the effect of prenatal nutrition on gene expression, and the rise in obesity rates throughout the world. The quality of the writing is excellent. The author uses a journalistic approach that makes the book very readable and gives you a feel for the personalities involved in the various aspects of obesity research. Good explanations from social, biological, and pharmacological perspectives are provided for why obesity is going to be a difficult problem to solve. The growing pandemic of obesity poses a global health problem that everyone should understand better. Reading this book is a good place to start.

Rating:
Summary: Obesity Marketeers
Review: While one can be grateful and admire the authors' acknowledgement of the marketing of obesity-just how much the obsessive desire of normal weight people to be stick thin body builders viciously escalated today's obesity epidemic is, of course as with all these eat less move more, political books never really examined. To her credit she is more sympathetic than scolding, and acknowledges homo sapiens' stunning ability to survive famine through "famine" metabolism control, (I wish I could regulate my heater so effectively in the winter!) and superior carb storing ability as fat. (If only I could get this kind of return on my bank acct. for such minimal but constant deposits!) The hope based on ignorance of this physiological truth is what the diet industries profits from with it's-hello-eat less! starvation sports drinks and reducing teas. This is the real evil cuplrit here-NOT Fast food! Who was believing that fast food supersized meals were beneficial to your health anyhow? No one, at least in that industry, was preying on false hope and America's moral obsession with thinness and fitness. In that sense "health bars" such as Jamba Juice, where one gulped down thousands of calories of fructose and fat free soy while the other hand slammed one's face with fat free carbs hoping to regain one's compromised modern health is the real problem. The junk food eaters woud've always been part of America's once stable fat percentage, but over looked is what compounded and created the Obesity epidemic one hears about ad nauseum: those miserable, self-loathing healthy eaters adhering tragically to the eat low fat replaced with earth sustaining carbs-move into the gymn self-flagelaters who found themselves more and more exhausted, deprived and self-blaming only to wake up fatter somehow. AT least anorexia had paid off-this was just killing you slowly and making you feel like a corpse in sweats. The majority of said "victims" were not cheating-which is truly heroic and unfathomable in the face of the kind of out of control cravings this way of eating sets you up for. Talk to the Great Generation who starved through the forties and rejoiced at having plenty again, bragging about having enough to even add back the more expensive meats. (This is why I don't buy the class argument! Produce, grains, low fat protein like soy and tuna recommended here for thinness are the cheap food! One has only to make a slight effort to eat these instead of Mc Donalds.) At this point obsesity was stable, appetites were satisfied, blood sugar was under control, and most importantly, the American obesity rate was stable. It is with the new food pryamid, (Any child attending school between the '70s and '90s remembers it.) when loading up on unsatisfying side dishes instead of building blocks stimulated a sort moral deprivation, fat cutting movement. Look at how the charts climb, notice how obesity rates, not to mention diabesity and all the other living deaths, (if not eventual deaths) became as out of control and all consuming as one's blood sugar. IT would be nice to see some acknowledgement of this reality, which could offer hope, since people can't very well give up eating altogether - Rather than chastising those already living like prsion camp laborers to do what they've been desperately trying to do-eat less, move more. I guess the shockingly frustrating trend where we've been eating less and weighing more is just something that will not be acknowledged for a very long time, and I keep hearing about how all of America will have eaten itself to death by then. The Roman empire certainly had a more admirable way of doing itself in, and we're not even enjoying the good stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Obesity Marketeers
Review: While one can be grateful and admire the authors' acknowledgement of the marketing of obesity-just how much the obsessive desire of normal weight people to be stick thin body builders viciously escalated today's obesity epidemic is, of course as with all these eat less move more, political books never really examined. To her credit she is more sympathetic than scolding, and acknowledges homo sapiens' stunning ability to survive famine through "famine" metabolism control, (I wish I could regulate my heater so effectively in the winter!) and superior carb storing ability as fat. (If only I could get this kind of return on my bank acct. for such minimal but constant deposits!) The hope based on ignorance of this physiological truth is what the diet industries profits from with it's-hello-eat less! starvation sports drinks and reducing teas. This is the real evil cuplrit here-NOT Fast food! Who was believing that fast food supersized meals were beneficial to your health anyhow? No one, at least in that industry, was preying on false hope and America's moral obsession with thinness and fitness. In that sense "health bars" such as Jamba Juice, where one gulped down thousands of calories of fructose and fat free soy while the other hand slammed one's face with fat free carbs hoping to regain one's compromised modern health is the real problem. The junk food eaters woud've always been part of America's once stable fat percentage, but over looked is what compounded and created the Obesity epidemic one hears about ad nauseum: those miserable, self-loathing healthy eaters adhering tragically to the eat low fat replaced with earth sustaining carbs-move into the gymn self-flagelaters who found themselves more and more exhausted, deprived and self-blaming only to wake up fatter somehow. AT least anorexia had paid off-this was just killing you slowly and making you feel like a corpse in sweats. The majority of said "victims" were not cheating-which is truly heroic and unfathomable in the face of the kind of out of control cravings this way of eating sets you up for. Talk to the Great Generation who starved through the forties and rejoiced at having plenty again, bragging about having enough to even add back the more expensive meats. (This is why I don't buy the class argument! Produce, grains, low fat protein like soy and tuna recommended here for thinness are the cheap food! One has only to make a slight effort to eat these instead of Mc Donalds.) At this point obsesity was stable, appetites were satisfied, blood sugar was under control, and most importantly, the American obesity rate was stable. It is with the new food pryamid, (Any child attending school between the '70s and '90s remembers it.) when loading up on unsatisfying side dishes instead of building blocks stimulated a sort moral deprivation, fat cutting movement. Look at how the charts climb, notice how obesity rates, not to mention diabesity and all the other living deaths, (if not eventual deaths) became as out of control and all consuming as one's blood sugar. IT would be nice to see some acknowledgement of this reality, which could offer hope, since people can't very well give up eating altogether - Rather than chastising those already living like prsion camp laborers to do what they've been desperately trying to do-eat less, move more. I guess the shockingly frustrating trend where we've been eating less and weighing more is just something that will not be acknowledged for a very long time, and I keep hearing about how all of America will have eaten itself to death by then. The Roman empire certainly had a more admirable way of doing itself in, and we're not even enjoying the good stuff.