The Way to Eat: A Six-Step Path to Lifelong Weight Control [Hardcover]

David L. Katz (Author), Maura Gonzalez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2002

The Way to Eat is a comprehensive guide to a lifetime of eating well in support of three goals: overall good health, weight control and the enjoyment of food. The Way to Eat helps readers identify the common barriers to healthful eating in the modern nutritional environment, including busy schedules, the easy access to fast, fatty foods and our predisposition to prefer fats and sweets. Strategies for overcoming barriers are stressed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Katz, a professor at Yale University School of Medicine and director of Yale's nutrition center, offers a comprehensive overview of food and diets. The book begins with a guide to nutritional basics and what people need to eat vs. what they may want to eat. Katz debunks common myths and offers specific suggestions such as how to eat less salt, what percentage of different foods should be consumed daily, how to limit foods, etc. The book contends that people can train themselves to eat certain foods and not eat other foods by eliminating less healthy choices. For example, by knowing something contains both excessive fat and salt, people can plan for a healthier substitute. Much of the book offers prescriptive steps designed to help people make these smarter food choices. The advice, while not completely original, is still worthwhile. For example, in a section on the right way to snack, Katz says, "For snacking to be beneficial, the snacks themselves must be well chosen, and used in substitution for, rather than in addition to, other items in the diet.... Good snacking should have a certain rhythm, with certain types of snacks eaten at certain times of day." While not offering a specific diet plan, the book provides practical tips, along with persuasive reasons, for changing eating habits. This title is a solid addition to the nutrition and diet shelves.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.P.M., is Director of the Center for Disease Control-funded Yale Prevention Research Center. He is also Associate Clinical Professor of Epidemiology & Public Health, and Medicine, at the Yale University School of Medicine, and a Board-certified specialist in both Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine.

Dr. Katz lectures on nutrition and disease prevention throughout the United States and abroad, and directs related courses at the Yale Schools of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing. Author of a weekly preventive medicine column in the New Haven Register, and contributing health expert to O magazine, Katz has authored or coauthored five medical textbooks. Katz lives in Connecticut with his wife, Catherine, and their five children.

Maura Harrigan González, M.S., R.D., is a Registered Dietitian certified in Adult Weight Management. She has served as Head Dietitian at the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic of the New York Hospital, Chief Clinical Dietitian and Associate Director of Nutrition at Saint Vincent's Medical Center in New York City and Research Dietitian at the Yale Prevention Research Center. González lives in Connecticut with her husband, Carlos, and their two daughters.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks; 1 edition (December 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570719837
• ISBN-13: 978-1570719837
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,416,024 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars We chose it for our "Let's all read the same book" project. November 20, 2003

By M. Perdue

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Review for Amazon

Healthy U of Delmarva recently selected The Way to Eat as the book we would use for our "Let's all read the same health book" program and also, this book won our $1000 award for the Best Lifestyles Improvement Book. If you're considering buying The Way to Eat, you might enjoy knowin what went into selecting this book out of all the hundreds of diet and exercise books that are out there.

For a start, we were a little skeptical about all the currently popular diet books. We are aware of studies that show that even though virtually all of the popular diet books will enable you to lose weight initially, a year after starting their diet, you'll almost certainly have gained all the weight back and then some. We wanted a book that would give readers the best chance at long term, healthy weight control, and that meant the book we selected would have to be one that took into account the kinds of diets that actually work long term. What you're about to read isn't the biggest reason we chose the Way to Eat but we were impressed by the fact that this book is based on a review of literally thousands of long term studies on which diets really work.

In addition to wanting a book that had the best chance of achieving what it aimed at, we were also looking for a book that is scientifically sound, one that was written by someone with true medical and scientific credentials. Dr. Katz is a medical doctor, a scientist, and a professor at the Yale University Medical School. He wrote the technical book on nutrition that your doctor may be using as a reference book....

The book we selected also had to pass yet another screen, once our committee of librarians and physicians were satisfied that the book would be reliable and scientifically sound: the book would have to be written in a popular style. Dr. Katz writes the nutrition column for Oprah's O Magazine, so he has experience writing in a popular style. Our county librarians agreed that The Way to Eat was written in a clear, accessible and reader-friendly style.

We recommended The Way to Eat to the 156,000 people in the Tri-County area that Healthy U serves because it scored the highest among the dozens of books that our local librarians and physicians reviewed. They felt that it had the greatest chance of helping people improve their lifestyles, that the author had credentials that they would trust, and that it was written in a people-friendly style.

If you want a book that can make a difference in your health and your family's health as well, Healthy U of Delmarva recommends this book. Why not use this book for your area's "Let's all read the same book" program? E-mail me and I'll tell you how we did it. Read more ›

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars what it is July 28, 2004

By Phili foodie

Format:Paperback

I wanted to lose about 10-15 lbs. Everyone I knew (thin people overall)were suddenly doing the no-carb thing. But as someone who has never been on and never wants to go on a diet I could not get myself to accept that grains are my downfall and meat is the answer. I was leary of trying to, quote, trick my body into thinking it is starving, during an induction period that was being recommended by the other diets. I wanted a diet that would be heart healthy long-term and that I would want to share as a way of life with my children. I believe that the no-carb folk are motivated by the quick results of the induction period, not as much due to restricted carbs as restricted calories. My sister wouldn't eat a single grape the first few weeks.

But they are a convincing lot and I decided to take out a few of the popular diet books from the library and decide my path to a healthier/leaner life at leisure. The clear winner was The Way to Eat. It provides the motivation to break the bad habits (sugars, bad carbs, too few veggies, junk food). It acknowledged the existence of bad carbs and without blacking the name of all carbs. In fact it differntiates the good, bad or ugly in all the food groups with it's recommendations. The diet (and its presentation in the book)is balanced, positive, and backed by the bulk of professional studies over the course of years. A fun read, it made getting on track easy and delicious. So now, with the right foods on my shelves, I have returned all the books to the library's shelves and am here on Amazon.com to purchase my own copy of Dr. Katz's book. And I plan to share it with my no-carb crowd!

Note to the reviewer a few down who complains that the reveiws are from CT and MD: your e-mail was so not helpful......it had nothing whatever to do with the content of the book! Some free advice: grow up, stop being a nudge, and read the book before you comment. Read more ›

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS IS THE BOOK DOCTORS AND THEIR PATIENTS HAVE BEEN WAITIN February 4, 2003

By John F. Setaro, MD, Director, Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Center, Yale University School of Medicine

Format:Hardcover

The Way To Eat is a superb book by nutritionist and preventive specialist Dr. David Katz. He explains in clear terms how we have gotten into the present epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease (our bodies are originally adapted for intensive physical activity in a setting of constant food scarcity), and why binging and weight gain are natural outcomes (in our new high-fat high-calorie low activity environment). Katz then dispenses with both guilt as well as fad diets, explaining how we can alter our eating habits to suit the modern environment. Simple and intelligent food choices (including how to read and really understand "Nutrition Facts" product labeling), healthful snacking, and providing children with healthful early eating habits serve as major points of emphasis in this outstanding guide. The Way To Eat is a major achievement in the nutrition field. I have already begun recommending it to patients and their families, and readers everywhere will be richly rewarded when they embrace Dr. Katz's insightful, enjoyable, and common sense advice.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Healthy Eating Habits November 25, 2003

By Joan N. Fobbs

Format:Hardcover

The Way to Eat by Dr. David Katz is by far one of the most complete guides to understanding the importance of eating healthy. Trite but true, eating healthy equals good overall health. Katz focuses more on skill acquisition rather than food deprivation, which only leads to gorging to fill the food void left after withholding our beloved food cravings. The book provides numerous ways to have your cake and eat it too, without the unwanted side effects of weight gain and guilt. Dr. Katz has a witty writing style that appeals to the intellectual and the average Joe. Several sections of the book are especially useful, The "Then/Now" approach takes us back to the origin of some of our food instincts. Armed with this knowledge empowers us to understand our food foibles. Label reading does not sound to exciting until you see how the correct interpretation of label information can contribute to success rather failure. Another gem in the book is related to the vignettes of successful people who have been where many of us are and had the ah hah experience that set them on the right track, gives you the feeling that there is hope. Finally, the book has something for everyone. It may not be gut riveting info but it's the healthiest reading that I have had in a while.