We are facing a gathering health crisis of epic proportions. The crisis is obesity and the diseases linked to it - hypertension, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. While multinational drug companies race to find a cure, the problem only worsens, with experts declaring that the UK is the second most obese nation on the planet and that 31,000 death a year in Britain are obesity-related. In a rare blend of cutting-edge science, history and personal stories, Shell builds a compelling narrative culminating in a thought-provoking - and radical - call to arms. This is the definitive account of how the western world got fat - and what we can do about it.
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About the Author
ELLEN RUPPEL SHELL is a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and writes for Discover and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications. She is associate professor and co-director of the Program in Science Journalism at Boston University.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A study of some urgent health issues,
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This review is from: Fat Wars (Paperback)
The author first starts by studying various techniques to reduce the amount of food people can ingest: shrinking stomachs, jaw wiring or placing gastric balloons in the stomach. She then takes a historical approach to obesity which dates back to the Middle Ages.Scientists have discovered that weight is controlled by a sort of thermostat called lipostat. A reduced obese person is not the same as another person of the same weight because the way their brains perceive the ingestion of food is different. Indeed human eating behaviour is dictated by human physiology and the way genes orchestrate this process. For many people the fact that body weight is biologically determined still does not appear acceptable. The author then retraces all the steps leading to the discovery of leptin, a hormone functioning as a satiety factor. From a sociological point of view obesity is regarded as a manifestation of moral turpitude. Drug makers consider obesity as a chronic condition which requires chronic attention and therefore try to design medication which must be prescribed for life. Some drugs are actually dangerous like Redux because they can cause nurotoxicity and pulmonary hypertension. Unfortunately the system of genes, peptides and hormones regulating food intakes is extremely difficult to manipulate. Having thrifty genes has less to do with metabolic rate than with one's inability to self-regulate food intake in the face of plenty. Researchers in England hope to tease out what factors in the mother's diet affect foetal development and child health. In psychology scientists have for decades studied the connection between obesity and what is called the hedonic impact of food. A valuable study of the war many people fight against an excess of calories.
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