Obesity/Diet Myth

[Blithe Morning]

I am reading a book right now entitled The Obesity Myth (2004; later issued as the Diet Myth in 2005) by Paul Campos. He maintains that the current medical view of obesity and overweight as automatically detrimental to health is not scientifically founded. He further states that the current drumbeat to lose weight is, in the long run, harming us since most of us cannot lose the recommended amounts of weight AND maintain that weight loss.

He stops short of saying the fixation of our public health officials on weight loss is a conspiracy but does point out that there are special interest groups that benefit from having weight loss be a national cause. He makes some pointed arguments about how overweight is now the socially inferior class and frequently discriminated against.

While I agree with a lot of what he says, his style is too combative and argumentative for me. You can hear the disdain in his text. But, I thought I would mention it to see if anyone else had read or heard of this book/author.

[kccc]

I had not, and it sounded interesting.

Checked out the Amazon reviews (I love that feature). One thing I do is check the critical reviews to see what the rationales are for NOT liking it. You might take a look at them too. (I do look at positives too, but a good critique tells a lot. And dopey critiques are pretty easy to spot.)

From what I gleaned, sounds like some useful truths packaged in an over-the-top-presentation-to-get-attention, which can lead to misleading assumptions. For example, overweight-and-active can be healthier than thin-and-sedentary. However, overweight-and-sedentary commonly tend to go hand-in-hand (with exceptions, of course), and that combination IS a health issue.

I think overweight is a health issue, but preoccupation with weight loss (without accompanying health gains - like people who do cosmetic surgery to get thin, etc.) is also an issue. So, some good points.

Thanks for sharing.

[vmelo]

One thing I do is check the critical reviews to see what the rationales are for NOT liking it. . . . (I do look at positives too, but a good critique tells a lot. . .

I'm so glad I'm not the only one! I always tend to gravitate towards the negative reviews. At times, I've found that the very point that the reviewer is complaining about is a point that I would see as a benefit.

Edited to add: I found an article about the book on Salon.com:

http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/ ... sity_myth/