http://www.amazon.ca/Fat-Politics-Americas-Obesity-Epidemic/dp/0195313208/sr=1-59/qid=1166059374/ref=sr_1_59/701-6846714-9978720?ie=UTF8&s=books

From Publishers Weekly
It's not obesity, but the panic over obesity, that's the real health
problem, argues this scintillating contrarian study of the evergreen
subject of American gluttony and sloth. Political scientist Oliver condemns
what he feels is a self-interested "public health establishment"-obesity
researchers seeking federal funding, pharmaceutical and weight-loss
companies peddling diet drugs and regimens, bariatric surgeons and other
health-care providers angling for insurance reimbursement-for spuriously
characterizing fatness as a disease. He debunks the dubious science and
alarmist PR that fuels their campaign, taking on arbitrary Body-Mass Index
standards that slot even Michael Jordan in the overweight category,
state-by-state maps of obesity rates that make fatness look like a
contagion spreading over the countryside, and flimsy research studies that
vastly exaggerate the danger and costs of weight gain. Oliver also examines
American attitudes towards obesity, probing the abhorrence of fatness
implicit in the Prot
estant ethic and, less plausibly, tying our contemporary feminine ideal of
the emaciated supermodel to a confluence of sociobiology and the economics
of the urban sexual marketplace. Arguing that fatness is perfectly
compatible with fitness, he contends that scapegoating obesity drives
Americans to experiment with dangerous crash diets, appetite suppressants
and weight-loss surgeries, while distracting us from underlying harmful
changes in the American lifestyle-mainly our incessant snacking on junk
food and shunning of exercise and physical activity, of which weight gain
is perhaps merely a "benign symptom." Oliver provides a lucid, engaging
critique of obesity research and a shrewd analysis of the socioeconomic and
cultural forces behind it. The result is a compelling challenge to the
conventional wisdom about our bulging waistlines. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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