Posted by JLx on September 2, 2007, at 10:47:35
In reply to Rethinking Thin, posted by Racer on June 24, 2007, at 23:55:17
I was reminded of this book in reading Kolata's recent NYT article, which sums up some of it:
"For the Overweight, Bad Advice by the Spoonful" http://www.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-obesity-ess.html
I thought this book was good overall and found myself wishing a lot of people would read it, especially those who think none of this is complicated.
But personally I also found this book to be very discouraging. I thought the subtitle may as well have been, "Trying to losing weight? Don't bother!" I thought Kolata herself was discouraged sounding by the results of the dieters she was following.
She also made it sound as if one's "set point" was almost immutable. Except we know that it's not - since some of us constantly readjust it upward. Are we supposed to believe that we were always destined to be our eventual top weight? It seems to me that if it can readjust up, it can readjust down; we just don't know much about how to do it yet.
JL
> I'm nearly finished with "Rethinking Thin" by Gina Kolata, and it's wonderful. The subtitle is something like "the science of weight loss and myths and realities of dieting," and if you've ever felt like a failure for not being able to lose weight and keep it off, I recommend it most highly.
>
> This books covers things like the history of obesity research, some of the political aspects of it, and I can't remember what else. If you're a little geeky, it's really fabulous reading. And it's quite well written, which helps.
>
> I first heard about it on The Colbert Report. He started off singing a little, "If you like Gina Kolata..." to her. That's probably why I remembered her name. Sometimes I think I'm a total dork...
poster:JLx
thread:765552
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20061001/msgs/780351.html