Customer Reviews

Thinking in Circles About Obesity: Applying Systems Thinking to Weight Management

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A very good look at a systems approach to health management. This shows just how complex, the causes of any health problem can be and why quick fixes never work in the long term. All the diet and surgical fads,are just dealing with a small part of a large system and eventually stop working or make things worse. By addressing the problem from a systems approach,looking at all the various parts biological,psychological,social etc. We can hopefully come up with a better long term solution. It also avoids blaming one part of the system,the person,society or the media. Systems theory could hopefully be adopted for a number of health problems and this well written ( and illustrated) book will be a kick start.

This is an excellent book to read and to "complement" whatever one's favorite weight-loss guide might be. I wish I read it first, for it would have made me a more intelligent "consumer" of the ton of self-help books and advice out there.

It is a comprehensive, well-researched, and fun to read book that enhances our understanding of how our body regulates energy, and the many (reciprocal) interactions between our health and our environment.

A must read for parents... who need to address the systemic/long-term risks of this complex but slow developing threat before children get trapped in lifestyles which ultimately result in chronic obesity.

As Dr. Hamid argues, first and foremost, parents need to understand that a major driver of the obesity epidemic--for both children and adults--is the mistaken belief that it is O.K. (normal?) to defer to the body's wisdom and to "cruise" on automatic feeding control. That is, to regulate feeding behavior in accordance with our body's hard-wired biological drives--which drive us to eat to our physiological limits when food is readily available and selectively focusing on foods high in energy density.

To maintain a healthy body weight, our children thus need to learn to replace the passive model of involuntary (automatic) feeding regulation and assert cognitive control to proactively resist the obesifying aspects of the current environment. (In some oriental cultures, for example, children are taught "not to eat until hungry, and when eating to stop before feeling full.") And here's the really hard part: not for a week, or a month, but for a lifetime.

Many parents, for example, assume that children are fundamentally incapable of regulating their food intake--determining what, when, and how much to eat. Thus, to en sure adequate, well-balanced food intake, we see many parents, rather than empower their children with cognitive skills to make their own healthy nutrition choices, simply take-over the decision-making responsibility on their kids' behalf. They do this instinctively and, of course, with the best intentions--because they believe they can do it better or more easily; or because they do not want to saddle their children with the onerous respon sibilities that personal control entails. It is a common pitfall that many parents fall into--and a risky one.

Obviously, parents need to exert some control over their children's dietary options--ensuring, for example, that a variety of rea sonably healthful foods and snacks are readily available on the kitchen's shelves. If the house is stocked with cookies, cakes, candies, chips, sodas and ice cream, naturally that's what children will want to eat. But if parents go too far in tightly controlling the what, when, and how much of feeding, they risk seriously impeding their children's abilities to build self-regulatory competence and thereby promote the very problems they are attempting to avoid--overeating and weight gain.

In terms of fair disclosure; I am an avid SDer ( i.e. Systems Thinker ) so much of this book
was a review of concepts I have learned and to that extent my reading this book
has the author `preaching to the choir'.

That said; everyone can benefit from reading this book
to get perspective in terms of realistic expectations
for preventing obesity in the future.

The Systems Thinking perspective is needed in order to make people keenly aware of the
long delays involved between actions and outcomes/risks with respect to obesity.
A heightened awareness and perspective on prevention are the takeaways from this book
in terms of individual responsibility that acknowledges the pressures to overeat
that exist in this day & age in our society.

This book does an excellent job illustrating how to communicate that awareness in a way
that leads to changed behavior and healthier living.