Synopses & Reviews
In this eye-opening book,
New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our societys obsession with dieting and weight loss is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals.
Rethinking Thin is at once an account of the place of diets in American society and a provocative critique of the weight-loss industry. Kolatas account of four determined dieters progress through a study comparing the Atkins diet to a conventional low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of politics and power.
Rethinking Thin asks whether words like willpower are really applicable when it comes to eating and body weight. It dramatizes what it feels like to spend a lifetime struggling with ones weight and fantasizing about finally, at long last, getting thin. It tells the little-known story of the science of obesity and the history of diets and dietingscientific and social phenomena that made some people rich and thin and left others fat and miserable. And it offers commonsense answers to questions about weight, eating habits, and obesitygiving us a better understanding of the weight that is right for our bodies.
Review
"Kolata lays out the case against the nation's multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry with compelling clarity."--
The New York Sun"An incisive, thought-provoking examination of a subject that concerns us all. This book will educate and illuminate those seeking solid information about the struggle to lose weight."--Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of How Doctors Think
"[Kolata] questions the current chest-beating in this sobering examination of why diets fail."--People (four stars, critics choice)
"[Kolata] punctuates her eight chapters with the voices of a cluster of dieters, [and] their stories add human consequence to the universal findings."--The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
"A first-rate author . . . Readers who care about the searing obesity debate will want to read this book."--Houston Chronicle
"[Kolata's] report reveals well-documented intelligence certain to annoy those segments of society and commerce that stubbornly cling to the ignis fatuus that all one needs to be thin is willpower."--Booklist
"This book will make you think differently about obesity and perhaps make the obese think more realistically about themselves."--The Arizona Republic
Synopsis
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
In this eye-opening report, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our society's obsession with dieting is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals. Kolata's account of four determined dieters in a study comparing the Atkins diet to a low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of the place of diets in American society. Brimming with anecdote, scientific data, and common sense, Rethinking Thin offers a challenge to the conventional wisdom about diets and weight loss.
About the Author
Gina Kolata is a senior writer who covers medicine for The New York Times, and the author of five previous books, including Ultimate Fitness and the national bestseller Flu. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.