Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting

by Gina Kolata

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312427856
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	04/29/2008
Edition description:	First Edition, First Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Gina Kolata is a senior writer who covers medicine for The New York Times, and the author of five previous books, including Ultimate Fitness and the national bestseller Flu. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Editorial Reviews

Kolata lays out the case against the nation's multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry with compelling clarity.” —The New York Sun

“An incisive, thought-provoking examination of a subject that concerns us all. This book will educate and illuminate those seeking solid information about the struggle to lose weight.” —Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of How Doctors Think

“[Kolata] questions the current chest-beating in this sobering examination of why diets fail.” —People (four stars, critic's choice)

“[Kolata] punctuates her eight chapters with the voices of a cluster of dieters, [and] their stories add human consequence to the universal findings.” —The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“A first-rate author . . . Readers who care about the searing obesity debate will want to read this book.” —Houston Chronicle

“[Kolata's] report reveals well-documented intelligence certain to annoy those segments of society and commerce that stubbornly cling to the ignis fatuus that all one needs to be thin is willpower.” —Booklist

“This book will make you think differently about obesity and perhaps make the obese think more realistically about themselves.” —The Arizona Republic

From the Publisher

Rethinking Thin isn't a diet book; it's a meta-diet book. New York Times science writer Gina Kolata doesn't offer any weight loss plan; instead, she traces our obsession with obesity back to its social and historical roots. With reportorial flair, she demonstrates that changing ideas about dieting and weight loss have been shaped by misconceptions and unrealistic ideals. After following a quartet of desperate dieters as they frantically struggle to melt away the pounds, she offers a devastating critique of the multibillion-dollar diet industry. This is top-flight investigative journalism.

Here [Kolata’s] argument is eminently sensible: Sure, shape up your body. But mostly, make your peace with it.
— The New York Times

Emily Bazelon

New York Times reporter Kolata may be the best writer around covering the science of health. Here she offers an eye-opening book that questions all our received wisdom about why we get fat and the health hazards of those extra pounds. In chapters equally entertaining and dismaying, Kolata (Flu) traces the history of dieting fads back to the 19th century; discusses our changing ideas about the ideal body (thinner and thinner); and, most importantly, explains how genetic and biochemical understanding has (at least among researchers) replaced the view of obesity as a lack of self-control. Most dramatic is Kolata's recounting of Jeff Friedman's groundbreaking search at Rockefeller University for the "satiety factor," a hormone he called leptin that tells our brains when we're full. The science alternates with moving chapters in which Kolata follows a group of people in a weight-loss study who are trying desperately to get thin—a quest that, as Kolata makes increasingly clear is sadly futile. In her final—and perhaps most surprising—chapter, Kolata blasts those in the obesity industry—such as Jenny Craig and academic obesity research centers—who are invested in promoting the idea that overweight is unhealthy and diet and exercise are effective despite a raft of evidence to the contrary. This book will change your thinking about weight, whether you struggle with it or not. (May)

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