Journal Entry 1 by pennywhistler on Wednesday, May 09, 2007

I decided to read this after listening to the author being interviewed on a podcast. The premise of the book is that the link between being fat and ill-health is exaggerated. Paul Campos doesn't claim that we can all spend our lives eating junk food and sitting on the sofa! He makes the point that being active has the biggest influence on your health and that being fat and active is better than being a thin couch potato. I found the book hard to get into as the author throws an awful lot of statistics at you in the first few chapters. I found the sections where he discusses the social and cultural issues surrounding weight far more interesting. There were some points that I found particularly interesting. He examines the fact that being slim/fat is tied up with class and culture. He looks at the way that women who are only slightly overweight see themselves as fat and that much of normal women's behaviour around food resembles that of the anorexic. This is a very thought-provoking book, although I did think it was a bit all over the place at times and they were some areas where I wished he had gone into more detail.

I am trading this with SillySilhouette - I hope you enjoy it!

"Is your weight hazardous to your health? According to public-health authorities, 65 percent of us are overweight. Every day, we are bombarded with dire warnings about America's "obesity epidemic." Yet studies show that a moderately active larger person is likely to be far healthier (and to live longer) than someone who is thin but sedentary. And contrary to what the fifty billion dollar per year weight loss industry would have us believe, medical science has not yet come up with a way to make people thin.
After years spent scrutinising medical studies and interviewing leading doctors, scientists, eating-disorder specialists and psychiatrists, professor Paul Campos is here to lead the backlash against weight hysteria - and to show that we can safeguard our health without obsessing about the numbers on the scale. But The Obesity Myth is not just a compelling argument, grounded in the latest scientific research; it's also a provocative, wry expose of the culture that feeds on our self-defeating war on fat. Campos will show:

* How the nation's most prestigious and trusted media sources consistently misinform the public about obesity
* What the movie industry's love affair with the "fat suit" tells us about the relationship between racial- and body-based prejudice in America
* How the skinny elite - with their "supersized" lifestyles and gas-guzzling SUVs - project their anxieties about overconsumption on the poorer and heavier underclass
* How weight-loss mania fueled the impeachment of Bill Clinton

In this paradigm-busting read, Professor Campos challenges the conventional wisdom regarding the medical, political and cultural meaning of weight and brings a rational and compelling new voice to America's increasingly irrational weight debate." 

Journal Entry 2 by SillySilhouette from Akron, Ohio USA on Monday, May 14, 2007

Well, thank you, thank you! Receiving a book in the mail is always fun (especially when it arrives with a pretty butterfly bookmark (can’t have enough of those) and a neat card!

I thought that it would be straightforward and rational until I saw the back flap of the dust cover. Somehow, I can’t quite figure out how “weight-loss mania fueled the impeachment of Bill Clinton”. –Am I being too literal?! Alas! I’ll have to read it for myself.

By the way, I enjoyed your book review.

Thanks again!
 

Journal Entry 3 by SillySilhouette at Cuyahoga Falls Library in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio USA on Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Released 2 yrs ago (4/21/2010 UTC) at Cuyahoga Falls Library in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio USA

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

WILD RELEASE NOTES:


I'm cleaning off my bookshelf and giving this book to the library for the book sale in May.