Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic [Hardcover]

Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic, by science writer Robert Pool, is the story of obesity research: the quest to find out why people get fat, why certain people are more likely to gain weight than others, why it's so difficult to lose weight, how the body's weight-regulating system works, how genes and environment interact to produce obesity, and why dieters regain their weight more than 90 percent of the time.

Pool presents story after story about the obesity scientists and their research, along with the evolution of social attitudes about corpulence. Some of the anecdotes are entertaining, such as the description of a 1911 experiment where a researcher inflated a condom in his belly, attached to a tube that went through his esophagus and out his mouth, to measure stomach contractions during hunger. Others may make you shudder, such as the story of 515-pound J.W., who lost weight in a hospital on a 600- to 800-calorie liquid diet 25 times, always rebounding afterwards to his previous weight.

Pool favors the leptin gene as a major clue to the mystery of obesity and treats it with more scientific detail than any other topic. Leptin, Pool explains, "regulates appetite and metabolism to keep the body at a stable, preferred weight." The brains of people with a mutation that results in deficient leptin production perceive their bodies as perpetually starving--even though they may be 50 or 100 pounds overweight.

Fat isn't a quick read and it won't tell you how to lose weight. It will appeal primarily to sociologists and those interested in the science of obesity. If that's you, you'll find this book to be a treasure trove of information. --Joan Price

In a well-paced narrative, science writer Pool (Beyond Engineering; Eve's Rib) traces the history of obesity in Western society and the ups and downs of medical science's ability to determine what causes some people to gain a considerable amount of weight and why it is so difficult to lose--and keep off--those extra pounds. For the longest time, both doctors and ordinary people have believed that losing and maintaining a lower weight were matters of personal responsibility--a very American perspective, the author avers. Certainly, if people change their eating habits and lifestyle, and are motivated, they can lose weight, but this formula of mind over matter is not universally successful. Moreover, despite recent breakthroughs in medical research, more and more Americans continue to become obese. The solution, argues the author, is that American doctors and nonprofessionals must change their beliefs about obesity: we must regard it not as an individual problem to be solved through willpower, but as a disease and, more specifically, a social disease "caused by a sick environment"--the fast-food and snacking environment--"to which some of us are more susceptible than others." Our bodies, which have changed little since our hunter-gatherer days, have not adapted well to our advanced, convenient, more sedentary Western lifestyle. Pool's aim here is to alert people to what he calls a rising epidemic. His arguments are cogent and convincing, but the reader may be disappointed to learn that Pool doesn't offer any suggestions to how we may be able to promote such widespread change. (Jan.)Forecast: A recent series of articles on obesity in the New York Times indicates the hunger (so to speak) that exists for information on weight loss; still, this book is mostly for the minority of readers who are looking not just for advice on how to lose weight but for a broader reflection on the problem.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Why is obesity increasing in our society? Why is it so difficult to lose weight? Numerous studies have shown the lengths to which our bodies will go to maintain a particular set weight. The ease of the Western lifestyle has only contributed to this problem. With a minimum of scientific and medical jargon, science journalist Pool (Dialogue and Interpretation of Illness) summarizes years of obesity research to illustrate the genetic, physiological, and environmental factors that cause us to gain weight. While there are some promising new treatments in the research stages, the author enforces the idea that a change in attitude and environment will be necessary to conquer this disease. This fascinating investigative journey into the history of obesity will go a long way toward removing the stigma attached to being overweight and will increase our understanding of the complex issues that contribute to the obesity epidemic. Highly recommended for all libraries.DTina Neville, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Robert Pool weaves a wonderful and balanced tale, linking the important 20th-century discoveries that led to the idea of the set point and our current understanding of the regulation of weight. Pool adds rich new details to the epidemiologic, psychological, and molecular discoveries behind one of the most interesting stories of modern biologic science. This book is a must for anyone interested in the history of science, public health, or the related epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. This engaging book tells a fascinating story and asks how we, as an advanced society, can fight the obesity epidemic." --Steven B. Heymsfield, M.D., The New England Journal of Medicine

"In painstaking detail, Pool explains the scientific and cultural forces behind a society that simultaneously encourages and stigmatizes obesity, and how conventional wisdom about weight became conventional wisdom."--Curtis Sittenfeld, The Washington Post

"This fascinating investigative journey into the history of obesity will go a long way toward removing the stigma attached to being overweight and will increase our understanding of the complex issues that contribute to the obesity epidemic. Highly recommended for all libraries."--Library Journal

When the leptin gene was discovered in 1994, news articles predicted that there might soon be an easy, pharmaceutical solution to the growing public health crisis of obesity. Yet this scientific breakthrough merely proved once again how difficult the fight against fat really is. Despite the many appetite-suppressants, diet pills, and weight-loss programs available today, approximately 30 percent of Americans are obese. And that number is expanding rapidly. Fat is the engaging story of the scientific quest to understand and control body weight. Covering the entire twentieth century, Robert Pool chronicles the evolving blame-game for fat--from being a result of undisciplined behavior to subconscious conflicts, physiological disease, and environmental excess. Readers in today's weight-conscious society will be surprised to learn that being overweight was actually encouraged by doctors and popular health magazines up until the 1930s, when the health risks associated with being overweight were publicly recognized. Thus began decades of research and experiments that subsequently explained appetite, metabolism, and the development of fat cells. Pool effectively reanimates the colorful characters, curious experiments, brilliant insights and wrong turns that led to contemporary scientific understanding of America's epidemic. While he acknowledges the advances in the pharmacological fight against flab, he underscores that the real problem of obesity is not losing the weight but keeping it off. Drugs offer a quick fix, but they aren't the ultimate answer. American society must remedy the unhealthy daily environments of its cities and towns, and those who have struggled with their weight and have experienced the "yo-yo" cycle of dieting must understand the underlying science of body weight that makes their struggle more than a question of willpower.

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Robert Pool is a freelance science writer who has worked on the staff of Science and Nature. He is also the author of Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology and Eve's Rib: Searching for the Biological Roots of Sex Differences. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.