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

Front Cover
Macmillan + ORM, Apr 29, 2008 - Health & Fitness - 274 pages

In this eye-opening book, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our society's obsession with dieting and weight loss is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals.

Rethinking Thin is at once an account of the place of diets in American society and a provocative critique of the weight-loss industry. Kolata's account of four determined dieters' progress through a study comparing the Atkins diet to a conventional low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of politics and power.

Rethinking Thin asks whether words like willpower are really applicable when it comes to eating and body weight. It dramatizes what it feels like to spend a lifetime struggling with one's weight and fantasizing about finally, at long last, getting thin. It tells the little-known story of the science of obesity and the history of diets and dieting—scientific and social phenomena that made some people rich and thin and left others fat and miserable. And it offers commonsense answers to questions about weight, eating habits, and obesity—giving us a better understanding of the weight that is right for our bodies.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Looking for Diets in All the Wrong Places
Epiphanies and Hucksters
ONE MONTH
A Voice in the Wilderness
A Drive to
Insatiable Voracious Appetites
The Girl Who Had No Leptin
The Fat Wars
Epilogue
Acknowledgments

Other editions - View all

Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities ...
Gina Bari Kolata
Limited preview - 2007
Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities ...
Gina Kolata
No preview available - 2008
Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities ...
Gina Bari Kolata
No preview available - 2007

Common terms and phrases

American Beauty animals appetite asked Atkins diet Banting began behavior modification Bloom body mass index body weight brain Brownell calories calories a day carbohydrates Carmen says Center clinical diabetes Diet Revolution diet study dieters disease doctor drugs exercise Farooqi fat cells fatter feel Flegal Fletcher Friedman says gain weight gene genetic Gibson Girl Gina Kolata going Graz heart hormone hungry hypothalamus Ibid interview Jeffrey Friedman Jennifer Aniston Jenny Craig keep leptin Lois Banner look lose weight lost low-calorie low-carbohydrate diets magazine meal metabolism mice months National Never Satisfied Nutrition O’Rahilly obesity obesity researchers overweight oxyntomodulin paper patients Penn percent phen-fen pounds problem protein psychiatric psychological published question rats reported Rockefeller University satiety Schwartz scientists started stop eating Stunkard surgery tell thin thing thinner thought told tried weight loss Williamson women wrote York

About the author (2008)

Gina Kolata is a science writer 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.

Bibliographic information

TitleRethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss—and the Myths and Realities of Dieting
AuthorGina Kolata
Editionunabridged
PublisherMacmillan + ORM, 2008
ISBN1429923652, 9781429923651
Length274 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Weight Loss
Social Science / Disease & Health Issues
  
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