Product Description

In this astonishing expose, journalist Greg Critser looks beyond the sensational headlines to reveal why nearly 60 percent of Americans are now overweight. Critser's sharp-eyed reportage and sharp-tongued analysis make for a disarmingly funny and truly alarming book. Critser investigates the many factors of American life -- from supersize to Super Mario, from high-fructose corn syrup to the high cost of physical education in schools -- that have converged and conspired to make us some of the fattest people on the planet. He also explains why pediatricians are treating conditions rarely before noticed in children, why Type 2 diabetes is on the rise, and how agribusiness has unwittingly altered the American diet.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46904 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780618380602
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
You reap what you sow. According to Critser, a leading journalist on health and obesity, America about 30 years ago went crazy sowing corn. Determined to satisfy an American public that "wanted what it wanted when it wanted it," agriculture secretary Earl Butz determined to lower American food prices by ending restrictions on trade and growing. The superabundance of cheap corn that resulted inspired Japanese scientists to invent a cheap sweetener called "high fructose corn syrup." This sweetener made food look and taste so great that it soon found its way into everything from bread to soda pop. Researchers ignored the way the stuff seemed to trigger fat storage. In his illuminating first book (which began life as a cover story for Harper's Magazine), Critser details what happened as this river of corn syrup (and cheap, lardlike palm oil) met with a fast-food marketing strategy that prized sales-via supersized "value" meals-over quality or conscience. The surgeon general has declared obesity an epidemic. About 61% of Americans are now overweight-20% of us are obese. Type 2 (i.e., fat-related) diabetes is exploding, even among children. Critser vividly describes the physical suffering that comes from being fat. He shows how the poor become the fattest, victimized above all by the lack of awareness. Critser's book is a good first step in rectifying that. In vivid prose conveying the urgency of the situation, with just the right amount of detail for general readers, Critser tells a story that they won't be able to shake when they pass the soda pop aisle in the supermarket. This book should attract a wide readership.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Childhood obesity, diabetes, and related illnesses are becoming major health problems in America. Nutrition journalist Critser presents a critical analysis of the many social and economic factors that make Americans, contrary to the book's subtitle, the second-fattest people in the world (the South Sea Islanders are fatter). He blames parents' reluctance to monitor their children's eating habits; the marketing tactics of fast-food companies, which influence us to overeat; the preponderance of fad diets; the phasing out of physical education programs in schools; and the sale of fast foods at schools to save money on dining facilities. Lower-income families have higher rates of obesity regardless of race, ethnicity, and gender, which the author attributes to lack of information about diet and exercise and the wide diversity of cultural beliefs about weight, body size, and self-esteem. Critser urges Americans to tackle obesity head on, concluding with descriptions of initiatives that worked when communities launched a cooperative effort to change their eating habits and avoid the path to lifelong obesity. An important work that belongs in all nutrition and public health collections. [See also Robert Pool's excellent Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic and Eric Schlosser's scathing Fast Food Nation.-Ed.]-Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., New Yor.
--Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., New York
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The New England Journal of Medicine
The pen is mightier than the sword. In fighting for the health of whole populations, it can also be mightier than the surgeon's scalpel or the physician's medical armamentarium. Sir Edwin Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (1843) hastened the passage of Great Britain's Public Health Act, laying the groundwork for a cleaner water supply. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) helped to push forward the Pure Food and Drug Act in the United States, ending uncontrolled sales of dangerous medications. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) laid bare the health risks of pesticides; dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was banned soon thereafter. Greg Critser's Fat Land attempts to focus attention on a new health crisis: the growing prevalence of obesity and poor physical fitness in the United States. During the past several years, both the popular media and the medical literature have drawn attention to the growing numbers of overweight persons. The prevalence of obesity has risen from 12 percent of adults in 1991 to more than 20 percent in 2001. Obesity rates for adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 have tripled in the past 25 years, increasing from 5 percent to the current 15 percent. Critser does an excellent job of synthesizing this information, making historical sense of the trends, and citing references for those interested in further reading, and he does so in a fashion that is as pleasurable to read as it is informative. Critser ascribes the rise in obesity to the confluence of several political, social, and economic trends. The early 1970s were a time of peak food prices. President Richard Nixon, fighting an unpopular war in Vietnam and eager to quell dissatisfaction at home, assigned his Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, to the problem. Butz enacted two reforms that had a lasting influence on Americans' girth: he eased regulations on corn production, and he lowered import restrictions on basic staples such as palm oil. The effects of these policy changes were multiplied by new forms of technology. A method was developed to turn the bumper corn crop into a low-cost sweetener: high-fructose corn syrup. Another innovation allowed the transformation of palm oil -- previously referred to as "axle grease" by American importers -- into a palatable substance suitable for use in processed foods. In his reference section, Critser points out that historians have paid very little attention to this area; he should be commended for his good work here. Fast-food marketing efforts also aligned to change the way, and the amount, we eat. As Critser explains, once the staples used to make fast food became cheaper, marketers induced consumers to buy and eat more of them. French-fry vendors in the 1970s noticed that even though consumers "`scrape and pinch around the bottom of the bag for more and eat the salt,'" fear of looking "`piggish'" kept them from buying two bags. Consumer reluctance to go back for seconds was overcome by increasing portion sizes, and "super-sizing" was born. A serving of McDonald's fries "ballooned from 200 calories (1960) . . . to the present 610 calories." Satiety expanded to meet the larger portions. Critser cites research showing that our appetites are not fixed; when presented with more food, we learn to clean our larger plates. Between 1977 and 1995, average daily food intake increased by almost 200 calories. Critser's observations of general cultural trends are less substantiated than his historical arguments, but they are nonetheless interesting. He describes the emergence of a "new boundary-free culture" facilitating the consumption of all these fat-rich, nutrient-poor foods. In earlier times, families sat down for home-cooked dinners, but "the new parent [of the 1980s] had no time for such unpleasantness" and ate out or ordered in. Popular childcare books promoted the theory "that a child `knows' when he or she is full," encouraging parents to cede control over their children's eating habits. Strapped for funds, schools began selling name-brand fast food during lunch. Critser's cultural observations also encompass discussions of religion, the marketing of "easy-fit" clothing, and sports utility vehicles. Most of the material is simplified to support his thesis, but all of it is easy to read, entertaining, and thought-provoking. Overall, Critser's review of science and medicine is good. The relation between poverty and obesity is well documented in the medical literature, and Fat Land gives that association needed attention. In areas where there is less consensus, Critser emphasizes certain studies but admits that more research is needed. For example, he describes changes in the recommendations for exercise over the past 20 years but points to the need for further study. The medical complications of obesity and diabetes are discussed in detail, although diabetic nephropathy, now responsible for approximately 40 percent of incident cases of end-stage renal disease, is not mentioned. Despite his medical omissions, Critser's occasional criticisms of physicians are still compelling. He charges the medical profession with complacency in the face of this growing epidemic, but in doing so he is accusing physicians only of faults they have already pointed out themselves. Most of his arguments come from the Journal of the American Medical Association and other major journals. Reading these critiques in the format of a well-written expose, however, rather than the cooler prose of a medical journal, gives them a more bracing effect. In the last chapter, entitled "What Can Be Done," Fat Land loses a bit of its focus. Rather than offering population-wide solutions to what he sees as a national epidemic, Critser gives anecdotal descriptions of small programs targeted at limited numbers: a modestly successful school intervention designed to combat obesity, an exercise class for "a group of fifteen or so" children with type 2 diabetes, and a pilot program aimed at getting residents of Colorado to walk more. Critser devotes much of his book to describing the way federal policy, crafty marketing techniques, and insidious changes in cultural mores colluded to place Americans, especially poor Americans, in "the first circle of fat hell." It is surprising and a little disappointing that he calls for "individual willpower" -- and the return of gluttony and sloth to their prominent positions among the seven deadly sins -- to "get [us] out of that hell." Commentaries in the medical literature, cited by Critser in his references, suggest more systematic approaches, similar to those promoted in the Surgeon General's campaign for smoking cessation. Fat Land falls short of suggesting an overarching approach to an overarching problem. That is left up to others. Despite these minor shortcomings, Fat Land deserves to be read by all who deal with the medical consequences of obesity and overweight. Jay E. Gladstein, M.D.
Copyright © 2003 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

Customer Reviews

Skinny volume throughly investigates why Americans are fat
Back in the 1970s and before, about 25% of the American population was overweight. But in the late 80s, the rate of overweight spiked upwards, and is now around 60 percent. Also, the rate of obesity in children has doubled in 30 years, with about 25% of Americans under age 19 overweight or obese. Why? What has happened between the 1970s and today to cause this dangerous and dramatic increase in overweight and obesity? Journalist Greg Critser does a thorough job of answering this question in just 176 pages (the appendix begins on page 177). In addition, he presents the above statistics and more, discusses the hazards of obesity, the politics behind overly lax weight and exercise recommendations to the American public, and discusses why the low income people are more obese as a group than high income people.

There�s the obvious answer as to why Americans have a huge weight problem: We eat more and exercise less. But Critser digs much deeper than this. Why do we eat more? For one thing, fast food restaurant meals and movies theater snacks are supersized. And Critser quotes research studies that people tend to clean their plates, regardless of how big the plate is. So why are meals supersized? Critser describes the history of supersizing, (the brainchild of David Wallerstein of the McDonald�s corporation), with the skill of a master story teller. Each of Critser�s discussion topics, such as childhood obesity and lack of exercise, is treated with considerable depth. Critser ends on a positive note, presenting some solutions that have worked on a small scale in areas of California, and are worth trying in other parts of the U.S.

As someone who has taught nutrition and weight management to college students, I was impressed with the thorough job Critser did of researching and explaining these issues. He summarizes studies in the peer-reviewed weight loss literature, quotes from the popular media, interviews some of the top weight loss researchers in the U.S. and others who shed light on the obesity problem such as California school officials. Far removed from the dry prose of the scientific literature, Critser presents his material in an entertaining and occasionally sardonic style.

My problems with �Fatland� are minor: My biggest problem is there are no footnotes in the body of the book, making it difficult to cross reference the studies presented in the 37-pages notes section at the end. Also, the organization of the book can be a bit awkward: each chapter begins with an anecdote, some longwinded, and it can take several pages to ease the anecdote into the chapter topic so that the reader knows why the anecdote is presented in the first place. Also the chapter �What the Extra Calories Do to You�, would make logical sense for chapter 1, but instead is chapter 6 of 7 chapters.

Overall, this is an excellent, well-researched, and entertaining read. I highly recommend �Fatland� for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of why America�s overweight and obesity problem has spiraled out of control.

Why It's Normal to Be Fat
Critser is no victim-based advocate calling for lawsuits against fast-food corporations in this incisive, analytical manifesto, which successfully penetrates the underlying causes of America's obesity epidemic. He explains that the obesity rate, which was always stable at around 25%, shot up to 60-65% in the 1980s and he provides a coherent narrative, packed with well-documented statistics, to show the major forces of that obesity spike. He shows that Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture for Nixon, was a key player in making the environment conducive to our being fat. In the 1970's, under Butz's charge, farmers grew more corn to make a cheaper form of sugar, High Frutose Corn Syrup, which metabolizes in far more dangerous ways than regular sucrose. Secondly, he made a deal with Malaysia, allowing them to export palm oil, also called "hog's lard," to America. Palm oil turns out to be a form of trans fat which, with a shelf life of infinity, clogs our arteries. The other enviromental condition that led us down a path of obesity was the Super-Size-Me Philosophy spawned in the fast-food industry. Shrewd business men who wanted greater profits preyed on our psychology and created a new way to make us fat:

1. Disguise our piggishness by making huge bags of fries rather than shaming us into buying two bags.
2. Combine low-profit (hamburgers) with high-profit (soda and fries) foods to create a "value meal."
3. Emphasize price and value over taste and presentation, which they found to their giddiness, made us eat MORE.
4. Banish the shame of gluttony. Create a culture where it's cool to overeat in the same way that it's cool to drive a big SUV and be a huge, conspicuous consumer.

What makes Critser's analysis so refreshing is that even though he points at the environmental hurdles we must face if want to be fit and trim, he always encourages us to educate ourselves and to take responsibility for what we put into our mouths. Reading his book is the first step in that education.

Is Gluttony Still a Sin?
Here Greg Critser lays out the appalling and well-known statistics on obesity in America. In recent years the numbers of overweight people have ballooned alarmingly, along with all of the associated health problems. These horrific increases are not natural and also cannot be explained easily. Critser, formerly overweight himself, makes many keen observations in this book about the several different causes of the American fat epidemic. There are economic causes, such as the increased use of cheaper but more fattening artificial sweeteners in food manufacturing, or the relentless push of the fast food and snack industries to increase market share. Cultural influences include the current politically correct acceptance of the overweight (actually a mortal fear of hurting someone's feelings), the popularity of baggy fashions, and even the media fascination with J. Lo's.... There are even some religious influences - see the title of this review. Critser's greatest achievement here is his bold stance on the class issues behind the obesity epidemic. Poor people (of any race) are far more prone to being overweight, as healthy foods and exercise programs are too expensive, and many poor people can't even get simple exercise outdoors due to fears of crime. The politically correct aversion to discussing class issues in any way breeds a real sense of denial about these problems. Critser studies all these troublesome trends in very enjoyable and often brutally honest ways, holding no punches as he describes the dire consequences for American society. Beware that some of Critser's scientific coverage gets bogged down in statistical overload, while popular culture is his obvious weak point - like his disastrous take on hip-hop fashions in Chapter 3. But Critser definitely points out the issues that America should stop ignoring, and has some very good potential solutions to the epidemic. Critser also succeeded in encouraging me to stop lying around reading this book and to go out and exercise. Good thing this book is short and to the point.