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Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America's Obesity Epidemic
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.59398
EAN: 9780195313208
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0195313208
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: September 14, 2006
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editorial Review:
It seems almost daily we read newspaper articles and watch news reports exposing the growing epidemic of obesity in America. Our government tells us we are experiencing a major health crisis, with sixty percent of Americans classified as overweight, and one in four as obese. But how valid are these claims? In Fat Politics, J. Eric Oliver shows how a handful of doctors, government bureaucrats, and health researchers, with financial backing from the drug and weight-loss industries, have campaigned to create standards that mislead the public. They mislabel more than sixty million Americans as "overweight," inflate the health risks of being fat, and promote the idea that obesity is a killer disease.
In reviewing the scientific evidence, Oliver shows there is little proof that obesity causes so much disease and death or that losing weight is what makes people healthier. Our concern with obesity, he writes, is fueled more by social prejudice, bureaucratic politics, and industry profit than by scientific fact. Misinformation pushes millions of Americans towards dangerous surgeries, crash diets, and harmful diet drugs, while we ignore other, more real health problems. Oliver goes on to examine why it is that Americans despise fatness and explores why, despite this revulsion, we continue to gain weight.
Fat Politics will topple your most basic assumptions about obesity and health. It is essential reading for anyone with a stake in the nation's--or their own--good health.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Fascinating research, weak conclusion
Fat Politics is a gripping read because it highlights how certain oft-repeated mantras about weight can start to achieve the status of "truth" even though there is little empirical backing for these claims. Indeed, what is most disturbing, as Oliver outlines, is how the media replays and fails to really investigate claims that quickly associate weight with ill-health. Oliver also deftly shows how the ideas of what is classified as "overweight" and "obese" are constructed and hence permits us to ... Read More
Rating:  - Mostly right but
In the opening chapter of this book Oliver shows just how unclear and arbitrary are notions of what it is to be 'fat' or 'overweight'. This will be the first step in making the argument that the present hysteria over the 'overweight epidemic 'in the United States is just that 'hysteria'. He will go on in the book to confute the notion that overweight is the main factor in most major illnesses. He will make a strong argument that vested economic interests, including drug and insurance companies have ... Read More
Rating: - Fat Politics
I found this book to be very informative and at last see that someone beside me feels that fat is being blamed on everything. Being a middle aged woman, though, I can attest to what the extra pounds have done to my knees, hips and ankles. I have spent my entire life, though, trying to not make myself a victim, but with discrimination being what it is, rude people being who they are, and being the butt of stares and comments, even though I have spent my entire life fighting fat, it is hard not to be ... Read More
Rating: - Good book, that I didn't fully agree with
At least this book mentions that osteoarthritis is highly correlated with body weight: the heavier you are, the more chance that your knees or hips will give out, especially if you are a woman (sorry, but it is true). I think that the author is right that to some extent, science has been manipulated by the diet industry and by scare tactics (let's face it, groups get heard by trying to scare us). I would not want to read this and then give myself the "all clear" as an overweight person, because I know ... Read More
Rating: - It's not the fat, it's the politics
This is a book that should be read by everyone with a "weight problem." Oliver does a terrific job of showing how the so-called obesity epidemic has little to do with genuine health concerns. Instead, not surprisingly, it's all about money: drug manufacturers who finance "obesity institutes" that hype the dangers of overweight to sell diet drugs; diet and exercise companies with a vested interest in convincing people that their excess pounds are hazardous to their health; bariatric surgeons who want your ... Read More
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