Kayote B. (kayote) reviewed Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America's Obesity Epidemic on + 254 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this book. Being overweight causes all sorts of problems, right? Well...maybe.
Starting with the point that obesity does not meet the definition of a disease until it's so high that only a fraction of Americans would qualify, he looks at why weight is so focused on.
The answers are, not surprisingly, industry, capitalism, and politics. There is a lot of money to be made if lots of people are "sick" and in "helping" them to get thin. Money means political power. Trying to be thin often causes diseases and damage and deaths well above what weight does.
The author makes the solid claim that fat is not the problem (with the exception of overweight does cause damage to joints). Fat is an effect of the problem that also causes everything laid at fat's door. There is no theorized method that fat makes one have diabetes--but the type of eating that would cause insulin resistance also causes fat. Losing the fat doesn't drop the chance of diabetes without also changing the lifestyle.
He makes the reasonable argument that the focus should be on fitness, not on weight. Someone who is fit is much less likely to have all sorts of diseases, no matter their weight, than someone who isn't fit, no matter their weight. Unfortunately, weight is an easy thing to terrorize people with and sell products to help, and an easy thing to check in a doctor's office, so that's where the focus is.
One very excellent point he makes, and I knew this but never connected it, is that the BMI scale is the same for men and women. Women are SUPPOSED to have more body fat than men, it's a gender difference in how our bodies work. So why is it the same, especially when BMI is weighted to favor the taller? I hadn't known the report used to justify lowering a "normal" BMI actually was in favor of raising it.
This was a very interesting & eye-opening book. The focus on weight in our culture is not healthy. It's distracting from the actual problems, results in discrimination, and actually causes a lot of health issues as people try to become something their body is not meant to.
With the help of plenty of companies willing to sell a method to get there...
Starting with the point that obesity does not meet the definition of a disease until it's so high that only a fraction of Americans would qualify, he looks at why weight is so focused on.
The answers are, not surprisingly, industry, capitalism, and politics. There is a lot of money to be made if lots of people are "sick" and in "helping" them to get thin. Money means political power. Trying to be thin often causes diseases and damage and deaths well above what weight does.
The author makes the solid claim that fat is not the problem (with the exception of overweight does cause damage to joints). Fat is an effect of the problem that also causes everything laid at fat's door. There is no theorized method that fat makes one have diabetes--but the type of eating that would cause insulin resistance also causes fat. Losing the fat doesn't drop the chance of diabetes without also changing the lifestyle.
He makes the reasonable argument that the focus should be on fitness, not on weight. Someone who is fit is much less likely to have all sorts of diseases, no matter their weight, than someone who isn't fit, no matter their weight. Unfortunately, weight is an easy thing to terrorize people with and sell products to help, and an easy thing to check in a doctor's office, so that's where the focus is.
One very excellent point he makes, and I knew this but never connected it, is that the BMI scale is the same for men and women. Women are SUPPOSED to have more body fat than men, it's a gender difference in how our bodies work. So why is it the same, especially when BMI is weighted to favor the taller? I hadn't known the report used to justify lowering a "normal" BMI actually was in favor of raising it.
This was a very interesting & eye-opening book. The focus on weight in our culture is not healthy. It's distracting from the actual problems, results in discrimination, and actually causes a lot of health issues as people try to become something their body is not meant to.
With the help of plenty of companies willing to sell a method to get there...
