What in American society has changed so dramatically that nearly 60 percent of us are now overweight, plunging the nation into what the surgeon general calls an "epidemic of obesity"? Greg Critser engages every aspect of American life - class, politics, culture, and economics - to show how we have made ourselves the second fattest people on the planet (after South Sea Islanders).

Fat Land highlights the groundbreaking research that implicates cheap fats and sugars as the alarming new metabolic factor making our calories stick and shows how and why children are too often the chief metabolic victims of such foods. No one else writing on fat America takes as hard a line as Critser on the institutionalized lies we've been telling ourselves about how much we can eat and how little we can exercise. His expose of the Los Angeles schools' opening of the nutritional floodgates in the lunchroom and his examination of the political and cultural forces that have set the bar on American fitness low and then lower, are both discerning reporting and impassioned wake-up calls.

Disarmingly funny, Fat Land leaves no diet book - including Dr. Atkins's - unturned. Fashions, both leisure and street, and American-style religion are subject to Critser's gimlet eye as well. Memorably, Fat Land takes on baby-boomer parenting shibboleths - that young children won't eat past the point of being full and that the dinner table isn't the place to talk about food rules - and gives advice many families will use to lose.

Critser's brilliantly drawn futuristic portrait of a Fat America just around the corner and his all too contemporary foray into the diabetes ward of a major children's hospital make Fat Land a chilling but brilliantly rendered portrait of the cost in human lives - many of them very young lives - of America's obesity epidemic.

A nutrition and health writer provides a thoroughly documented but nevertheless engaging treatment of the very serious "epidemic of obesity" which affects the health and well-being of some 60 percent of the American population. Class, politics, culture, and economics are taken into account to show how Americans, particularly children, have become overweight. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

A nutrition and health writer provides a thoroughly documented but nevertheless engaging treatment of the very serious "epidemic of obesity" which affects the health and well-being of some 60 percent of the American population. Class, politics, culture, and economics are taken into account to show how Americans, particularly children, have become overweight. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"In vivid prose conveying the urgency of the situation, with just the right amount of detail for general readers, Critser tells a story that they won't be able to shake when they pass the soda pop aisle in the supermarket." Publishers Weekly

"An important work that belongs in all nutrition and public health collections." Library Journal

"Food science, metabolic mechanics, and medical details are all set forth....The text, though, is generally lean and lucid, with wry commentary on the social aspects of Phat America." Kirkus Reviews

What in American sociery has changed so dramatically to make nearly 60 percent of us overweight? Can we fix what the surgeon general calls a national "epidemic of obesity"? Greg Critser engages every aspect of American life to determine how we have made ourselves the second fattest people on the planet (after South Sea Islanders).

Fat Land grapples with the expanding American waistline by tracing surprising connections among class, politics, culture, and economics. With groundbreaking research, Critser also investigates the dark metabolic underside of cheap fats and sugars and how their calories stick.

Incisive, discerning, and disarmingly funny, Fat Land leaves no diet book unturned; fashion, religion, fitness standards, and baby boom parenting are all subject to Critser's sharp eye. He looks at the very personal stories of scores of health professionals, their patients, and individuals who don't receive medical attention. Finally, Fat Land is a chilling but brilliantly rendered portrait of the cost in human lives - many of them very young lives - of America's obesity epidemic.

Greg Critser's work appears regularly in USA Today, where he is a member of the board of contributors, and he has written several cover stories on nutrition, health, and medical issues. His writing on obesity earned him a James Beard nonimation for best feature writing in 1999, and he is frequently interviewed by PBS and other media on the subject of food politics. He is author of National Geographic California (May 2000).

1.Up up up! (or, Where the calories came from) --2.Supersize me (who got the calories into our bellies) --3. World without boundaries (who let the calories in) --4.Why the calories stayed on our bodies --5.What fat is, what fat isn't --6.What the extra calories do to you --7.What can be done.