Book Review - Losing It

Losing It: False Hopes and Fat Profits in the Diet IndustryLosing It: False Hopes and Fat Profits in the Diet Industry by Laura Fraser

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I vacillated between four and five stars on this but, after reflecting on how much thought I've given to the text, it deserved a five.

Fraser ties together an incredible amount of research with her own stories of dieting and going undercover as a potential managed diet program participant. It took me a long time to get through this book because, as a lifetime fat girl, a lot of the subject matter was emotionally charged for me.

She covered how our society has changed over the years to one where unrealistically thin women (mostly women, not so much on the men in this one) are the ideal that all should strive for. There was a lot on diet fads, scams and programs and the possibly dangerous side effects associated with them. And, quite a bit on groups that are promoting acceptance of peoples' natural weight and rejecting the you have to be thin to be healthy mentality.

Published in the late 90s, some of the text is dated. For example, she interviewed Richard Simmons and Susan Powter and I think their programs are pretty much over, especially Powter's. Fen/phen was still on the market, too.

The final message is that diets don't work and that just being thin doesn't guarantee good health. What does increase your chance for good health is to eat mostly high fiber grains, fruits and veggies and do consistent exercise.



View all my reviews

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TV At Its Finest

I was talking to someone today who didn’t know who Bob Newhart was. I cut him some slack because he’s a youngster and didn’t grow up in the U.S. I told him about The Bob Newhart show and how it became a college drinking game and about Newhart, "Hi, I'm Larry; this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl." He was going to go to Wikipedia and do some research. The conversation got me thinking. Back in the day (like when dinosaurs were alive and I was young and there were only four channels on TV), we caught a lot of reruns of what are now considered classic TV. Especially, if you were a latchkey kid like I was, there wasn’t a lot going on in the afternoon/early evening so it was either soap operas or reruns unless you were allowed to be outside and play. And, of course, during summer vacation you had even more time to watch the boob tube. Here’s what I remember watching during those years: Gilligan’s Island, Big Valley (I’m still looking for my very own N
Read more

This Is How Fat Thinks

I was in Vegas over the weekend and Thursday night found me sitting at the bar in Margaritaville with some friends. We were having some drinks, talking to strangers and watching both the baseball and football games. All was well with the world. Out of nowhere, a young (20s?) guy came up behind me and snapped a selfie with me in it. He moved away before I could even get out "What was that about?" Less than 30 seconds later, another young guy came up and did the same. He also bounded away before I could stop him. My very first thought was that they were doing a photo scavenger hunt and one of the items was a picture with the fattest woman they found. Hell, could even have been the fattest person they saw if I let my mind take it further. Now, assuming a scavenger hunt, there are other reasons they could have wanted a picture of me. Maybe they needed a ginger, maybe it was someone with their hair in braids, maybe it was someone in the brightest colored shirt they could fin
Read more