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Title: Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting
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Manufacturer: Picador
List Price: $15.00
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| Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Picador Despair for the hopeful... | This book is depressing. Its general mood is doomed but interesting. Yes there are plenty of studies, and this is important in a diet book, however they are all inconclusive or opposing another study presented. Gina must have said, in some format, "don't even bother losing weight you will just put it back on" at least 100 times. Another mantra emphasized "your body has a special weight and it is not up to you". Although there is some element of truth in this, it should have been in a complete logical phrase such as "If your body is at a predisposition to gain weight, and that is greater than your mental willpower to change and keep a diet that promote a healthy body THEN you will be doomed to whatever that body type is". I would have expected more complete logical statements from a mathematician.
I lost about 40 lbs, improved my life, and became smarter all through becoming interested in weight-loss / fitness. Nothing makes me more excited than to talk with someone who wants to lose weight and change their life. This book is the antithesis of self motivation for weight loss. So if you are overweight and would like to add depressed and doomed to that, buy the book! | | Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Picador Excellent book! | This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to be educated about what science has shown (over and over again) about the nature of obesity and the effectiveness of weight loss.
Unfortunately, it seems that most people in our culture would rather defend their myths about obesity than learn the facts.
This book literally changed my life -- for the better. | | Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Picador Science--What a concept! | | Kolata's structures her narrative around four individuals in a randomized clinical trial comparing a low calorie diet to the Atkins diet. The enourmous dirty secret supporting the of practice of medicine, the insurance industry, the diet industry, and 40% of the populations' inflated egos is revealed--no known diet is effective after two years--diets do not work. Weight Watchers does not work. Atkins does not work. Low calorie diets do not work. Jenny Craig does not work. None of these diets do more than produce short term weight loss. In fact people who have been on them have the psychological response of people who have experienced starvation in prison camps, e.g. binging, obsession with food. Get this--those weight tables the insurance industry uses? They do not really predict longevity. The science tells an entirely different story about obesity and longevity than you hear from your doctor, insurance company, or in the popular press. For those of us who have lived the experiences that these seldom cited scientific studies confirm, it is a relief to understand our experience is not abnormal, crazy, or indicative of a deep moral failure. But, for "people like me" this book makes you realize that on your next visit to a physician you will be "treated," for the gazillionth time, based on folklore, greed, prejudice, ego, whim, arrogance, and ignorance. Hey, that's just on a doctor's visit--now let's considered business and social experiences. Sadly enough many are treated like a pariahs in our own families--even in our churches. To think we consider ourselves to have progressed beyond the magical thinking of the medievals. "Yea shall know the truth and the truth shall set yea free." I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do with these truths. But, I highly recommend the book--particularly for fat people and physicians!!! The scientific process is well explained and well documented. The resistance to accepting the findings is too. Oh my. Que lastima! | | Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Picador All doom and gloom | I, too, was very excited to read this book, but ultimately very disappointed. So the only conclusion that she comes to is that attempting permanent weight loss is pretty much an exercise in futility. Genetics will ultimately trump any efforts, and the obese will always be obese. Let me first say that I completely AGREE with her that diets don't work. I have been there, done that, and worn the t-shirt. But even she could have done better--the the study she uses to make her point utilizes two very unrealistic diets: the no-carb Atkins and the very low calorie, low fat LEARN diet. Talk about extremes. These are no more effective or practical to follow than any of the other fad diets that have come along throughout the last 100 years. Whatever happened to "all things in moderation"?
Telling fat people that they will never lose more than 10-15% of their body weight no matter what they do is, at best, misleading, and at worst, dangerous. She might as well tell them not to bother trying to eat healthy or exercise, to just sit on the couch and dig into the Haagen Daz, because there is no hope anyway.
-Do genetics play a major role in a person's "set point" weight? YES!!
-Is restrictive dieting doomed to fail: For 95% of us: YES!!
-Should fat people give up on losing significant weight: NO, NO, NO!!
And I do speak from experience: My mother is overweight, and my father and 3 sisters: ALL obese. I am 5'5" and 125 pounds. And I was not just "genetically blessed": at age 24, I weighed 195. I had been on every diet known to man. After gaining 3 pounds on Weight Watchers, I decided I'd never diet again. I had to completely change my mindset about food. I had to learn to truly pay attention to my appetite. I didn't change what I ate at first, just how much. I ate as soon as I noticed I was hungry (or at least ASAP), ate slowly, and stopped as soon as I noticed that little twinge of fullness. It definitely wasn't a perfect science, there were days when I wished I hadn't eaten so much and days when I wished I had eaten more. It took lots of practice. And yes, I exercised. It took a long time (5 years) for me to lose the weight, but it's stayed off, and without much effort. It was a lifestyle change, and that cannot come from ANY book. | | Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Picador Fascinating book!! | Another book I finished in the last couple of weeks is Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting, by Gina Kolata. First of all, Ms. Kolata is thin, so there is no self-justification in this book.
The book alternates between the last 2000 years of dieting history, from Hippocrates ("To control your weight, simply eat less and exercise more") and St. Augustine ("In the midst of these temptations I struggle daily against greed for food and drink.") to Adkins (incidentally copying the work of Frenchman Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825) and following a group of overweight people participating in a 2-year study investigating which method produces long-lasting results: Adkins or low-fat.
The book follows all the latest research into obesity as well. Surprising to me is the study done in Sweden following adopted children. The children's weight correlated to their birth parents' weights; not the adopted parents. Many studies have also shown that you can make a thin person fat or a fat person thin, but it is impossible to maintain either. The thin person will return to their original weight just as handily as a fat person.
Other research has found that some people don't produce enough Leptin, a chemical that signals the brain to "feel full". Others produce enough, but the brain can't read it. People who lose weight will have their bodies and minds go into "starvation mode", not unlike prisoners in a concentration camp or people in a famine. They obsess about food and even resort to stealing food. This is even for people who have been mentally evaluated for being totally committed to losing weight and having no other mental issues.
Another study that surprised me was one published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on April 20, 2005 by 4 authors who have no ties to the weight-loss industry showing that a little extra weight (considered obese) actually protected health. People who are overweight have more chance of surviving a heart attack than a "normal" weight person. The death rate for moderately overweight people is actually lower by all causes than "normal" weight people. Of course the morbidly obese are not included here, nor are the morbidly skinny.
This is not to say people should eat "whatever". Good foods always trump processed and refined junk foods.
Furthermore, studies done as elementary schools to educate children on good nutrition and exercise show that these children have no weight difference than children who have not been educated. That's not to say that they had similar health levels. They were clearly eating better and exercising more, but their weight was unchanged.
Finally, the 2-year study? Almost none of the people on it lost more than 10% of their weight and all of them gained most of it back. It turns out that everyone has a 10-20 pound normal range that we can control, but beyond that, our bodies won't let us do much. The people who lose an enormous amount of weight and keep it off do so by virtual starvation.
So, why does the world seem to be getting fatter? There are a couple of hypotheses bandied about in the book by the various scientists working on this issue. One is that we've always been prone as a species to be fat because of survival, but most of human history has been plagued by regular famine, so there was little opportunity for any but the rich to get fat. Another is that with the advent of modern medicine keeping more people alive longer, our bodies are evolving to live longer and we need extra fat to do so.
I noticed on the news this week that the scientists have discovered a virus that causes cells to morph into fat cells and start storing fat hand over fist. It's predicted as infecting 30% of the obese population.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in health and nutrition, but particularly to smug skinny people.
| | Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss---and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Picador Product Description | A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
In this eye-opening report, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our society's obsession with dieting is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals. Kolata's account of four determined dieters in a study comparing the Atkins diet to a low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of the place of diets in American society. Brimming with anecdote, scientific data, and common sense, Rethinking Thin offers a challenge to the conventional wisdom about diets and weight loss. |
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