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| Obesity All from Amazon |
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Obesity Myth, The
List Price: $25.00
Amazon Price: $17.50
Average Customer Rating:  (54 reviews)
Editorial Review: When an entire society is told that thinner is better and studies everywhere agree diets don't work, it's time to take a look at the assumptions behind the messages. For better or worse, this happens in Paul Campos' (Jurismania) book The Obesity Myth. Packed full of lengthy discussions of popular studies (particularly the Harvard nurses study), dense chapters run through statistics and conclusions at a breathtaking pace. Campos regularly insists on two points: BMI is basically meaningless, and a variety of media-based sources are contributing to an enormous industry that blends oversized portions with trendy, potentially harmful, diets. He grabs attention to the first claim with early assertions that by BMI standards, Brad Pitt is overweight and George Clooney is obese; more detailed discussion covers how insurance companies developed the BMI tables in their earliest forms and the federal government later tinkered with measurements in a way that accounts for much of the ...
Customer Reviews:
0 of 0 found this review helpful:
 A Sane Look at an Increasingly Insane Issue, 2008-06-29
This was an interesting read...I do think that Campos oversimplifies things a bit...but I also think he's right about the "obsession" over dieting and the effects of "yo-yo" dieting being more "dangerous" than just maintaining one's weight and being at least moderately active. I've long felt that weight is not as big an issue as it's being made out to be and that healthy living and increased activity are far more important than being pencil thin. I maintain (though Campos book does not say as much) that along with increasingly sedentary lifestyles, processed "convenience" and "fast food" are the biggest problems "we" face. I'd defiantly recommend this, though I'd also recommend the reader use a few grains of salt and expect the same message to be repeated at last a dozen times in the book...but overall, I think he has a good point that offers some sanity in an increasingly insane view of weight and health in the U.S. today. I give it a B+.
0 of 0 found this review helpful:
 Brilliant, 2008-04-07
This is one of the most brilliant books I've read on the subject. It completely exposes how Americans and the government have trapped themselves into a lifetime sentence of self-restriction and half-living. We must break free of this.
0 of 0 found this review helpful:
the diet industry's reality check, 2007-06-19
I had first heard of this book a few years back,
but never got around to reading it until last
night. This book completely changed my view
of my body, the diet industry, and America in
general.
The best parts of the book talk about how the diet
industry plays on people's insecurities, in order
to make money. Does the pharmaceutical companies
really care about the average American? No.
Unlike most diet commercials and products, Campos
uses hard-hitting facts to hammer home his main
point: that by yo-yo dieting, Americans are playing
a dangerous game with their bodies.
Kudos to Campos for destroying the stereotypical
notion that fat people cannot be fit. The correlation
between Bill Clinton, weight, and his impeachment
is also very, very interesting.
This book is recommended for anyone, fat or thin, who
is ready to make peace with their bodies and tired
of buying the hype that fuels the diet industry.
1 of 2 found this review helpful:
Tells it Like it Is, 2007-06-17
If you want to see how the government and doctors and others are trying to convince us how the majority of us are killing ourselves with fat, read this book.
Fat fit people are healthier than skinny unfit people.
Read the book and learn more.
3 of 5 found this review helpful:
They have been lying to us again., 2006-05-09
This is a very interesting book. It is not a book that will tell you how to become a normal eater, although it is obvious that he not only knows about normal eating trends, but approves of them. The book is mainly about how the diet industry has been lying to us about the obesity research out there, and how 95% or more of all diets result in people not just gaining it all back, mostly very quickly, but gaining back more than they lost in the first place. He also says that the height/weight charts are not reasonable and that the whole BMI thing is a fraud.
His main focus is that a person who is overweight, or even obese, is not necessarily unhealthy. If they are active physically, they can be more healthy than someone who is very thin and sedentary. He also thinks that the point where the height/weight charts say a person is overweight, and the second place where they are supposed to be obese, are set way too low.
And then he had to admit he had been losing weight the whole time he was writing, and that it ended up being a substantial amount of weight. He knows that part of it was that he began running in races, so he was training for competition for the first time in his life. I think he also began normal eating techniques, and what he calls healthy eating. Not a weight loss diet, but a diet for health that most people would not lose weight on.
Most of the normal eating books go into some of the material in this book in an attempt to explain why we need to give diets up, but they don't have the room for it in this detail. He after all, used 250 pages to tell his story.
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