Synopses & Reviews
For those fortunate enough to reside in the developed world, death before reaching a ripe old age is a tragedy, not a fact of life. Although aging and dying are not diseases, older Americans are subject to the most egregious marketing in the name of "successful aging" and "long life," as if both are commodities. In
Rethinking Aging, Nortin M. Hadler examines health-care choices offered to aging Americans and argues that too often the choices serve to profit the provider rather than benefit the recipient, leading to the medicalization of everyday ailments and blatant overtreatment.
Rethinking Aging forewarns and arms readers with evidence-based insights that facilitate health-promoting decision making.
Over the past decade, Hadler has established himself as a leading voice among those who approach the menu of health-care choices with informed skepticism. Only the rigorous demonstration of efficacy is adequate reassurance of a treatment's value, he argues; if it cannot be shown that a particular treatment will benefit the patient, one should proceed with caution. In Rethinking Aging, Hadler offers a doctor's perspective on the medical literature as well as his long clinical experience to help readers assess their health-care options and make informed medical choices in the last decades of life. The challenges of aging and dying, he eloquently assures us, can be faced with sophistication, confidence, and grace.
Review
"Hadler advocates informed decision making pertaining to all stages of aging."
-Library Journal
Review
"With this thoughtful guide, Hadler urges better options for end-of-life care than a lonely, traumatic last stop at the hospital."
-Publishers Weekly
Review
"Nortin Hadler challenges much conventional wisdom about aging with insight and verve. You may not embrace all of his views, but you will agree that his approach is often original and always thought provoking."
-Jerome Groopman, M.D., Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School, Author of How Doctors Think
Review
"Dr. Hadler has done an amazing job at engendering the debate on aging and medical care."
-William J. Hall, Fine Professor of Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine Center for Healthy Aging
Review
"An unflinching and rational dissection of the anti-aging field from one of the most respected voices in the health care debate today. Like Atul Gawande and Jerome Groopman, Dr. Hadler's scalpel has an uncanny ability to separate facts from hype and make us reexamine every screening test and treatment we take for granted as effective."
-P. Murali Doraiswamy, senior fellow, Duke Center for the Study of Aging, and coauthor, Living Well After An Alzheimer's Diagnosis
Review
"With passion and enthusiasm, Hadler offers a doctor's perspective that could prove useful for many people struggling to make better choices and increase wellness as they age."
-Foreword
Review
"A book for all readers entering the aging years, especially those who wish to avoid unnecessary and futile tests and procedures...
Rethinking Aging is a sobering book, calling for a careful and blunt dialogue about the end-of-life and aging issues. It should evoke much discussion and debate about the proper application of medicine and surgery in the aging population."
-Clifton K. Meador, MD JAMA
Review
"[Hadler has] provided his readers with valuable perspective that should make it easier for them to captain the ships of their own health."--
-The Carrboro Citizen
Review
"All Americans over the age of 45 as well as health care providers and political leaders should read this book. . . . Hadler provides useful insights into successful aging within the context of this challenging system. Highly recommended."
-Choice
Review
"[Hadler's] questioning of many conventional practices is refreshing and important. . . . In pleading for caution and clinical wisdom, he also offers a partial solution to the huge problem of how we might afford to provide good medical care for old people."
-British Medical Journal
Review
"Refreshing. . . . All nurses working with older people will gain a great deal from this book, particularly with regard to prevention. This book challenges our thinking on growing old and living well, and is highly recommended."
-Nursing Standard
Review
"Hadler argues for holding medical interventions to a high standard."
-Raleigh News and Observer
Review
"Well organized and detailed."--
-Burgs Sunday book review
Review
andquot;An engrossing history of fitness in the United States. . . . A must-read for fitness buffs and beefy enough to whet the appetite of even the most inert couch potato.andquot;andmdash;Kirkus Reviews
Review
"In Making the American Body, Jonathan Black masterfully explores the many twists and evolutions of the fitness industry, from barbells to exercise machines to today's health clubs."and#8212;Jeff Friend, Foreword Reviews
Review
andquot;An interesting history of physical fitness in America.andquot;andmdash;Karen Sutherland, Library Journal
Review
andquot;The antecedents of the American fitness industry are varied and fascinating, and journalist Blackand#160;. . .and#160;does a superb job of chronicling them.andquot;andmdash;Publishers Weekly
Review
and#8220;
Making the American Body is a fascinating and informative sprint through the history of body worship from the classical Greeks to the present-day fanatics of fitness.and#8221;and#8212;Pat Jordan, author of
A False SpringReview
and#8220;Jonathan Black vividly renders the trends and politics of the fitness movement through the decades, and many of the outsized personalities who have defined it. This is a fascinating and comprehensive look at what has become one of Americaand#8217;s defining obsessions.and#8221;and#8212;Charles Gaines, author and director of
Pumping IronReview
"As a book for a popular audience, it will be of interest to diverse readers."and#8212;J. L. Croissant, CHOICE
Synopsis
Although aging and dying are not diseases, older Americans are subject to the most egregious marketing in the name of "successful aging" and "long life," as if both are commodities. Hadler offers a doctor's perspective on the medical literature as well as his long clinical experience to help readers assess their health-care options and make informed medical choices in the last decades of life.
Synopsis
If you thought the fitness craze was about being healthy, think again. Although Charles Atlas, Jack LaLanne, Jim Fixx, Jane Fonda, Richard Simmons, and Jillian Michaels might well point the way to a better body, they have done so only if their brands brought in profits. In the first book to tell the full story of the American obsession with fitness and how we got to where we are today, Jonathan Black gives us a backstage look at an industry and the people that have left an indelible mark on the American body and the consciousness it houses.
and#160;Spanning the nationand#8217;s fitness obsession from Atlas to Arnold, from Spinning to Zumba, and featuring an outrageous cast of characters bent on whipping us into shape while simultaneously shaping the way we view our bodies, Black tells the story of an outsized but little-examined aspect of our culture. With insights drawn from more than fifty interviews and attention to key developments in bodybuilding, aerobics, equipment, health clubs, running, sports medicine, group exercise, Pilates, and yoga, Making the American Body reveals how a focus on fitness has shaped not only our physiques but also, and more profoundly, American ideas of what and#8220;fitnessand#8221; is.
and#160;
About the Author
Nortin M. Hadler, M.D., M.A.C.P., M.A.C.R., F.A.C.O.E.M., is professor of medicine and microbiology/immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attending rheumatologist at UNC Hospitals. His most recent books are Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America and Stabbed in the Back: Confronting Back Pain in an Overtreated Society.