Customer Reviews

The World is Fat: The Fads, Trends, Policies, and Products That Are Fatteningthe Human Race

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The name Barry Popkin carries some real clout in the nutrition/obesity research world, so I was excited to read his opinions and thoughts, and I cruised through this book in one night. The author starts out with the story of his life growing up in the 50's and the lives of a few other families in India and China, and he returns to them throughout the book. Although I don't feel that the individual stories make a convincing argument for why the world is fat, they do make the book immensely enjoyable and extremely easy to relate to.

What does make a convincing argument is the well-researched data that peppers this book, pointing the finger firmly at a one-two-three punch of the sudden drop in activity in our lives, the over-abundance of nutritionally void foods and the governmental/corporate intervention into our eating habits. While not a new theory, it is a new take that is a pleasure to read.

Where this book falls short is that the author doesn't really take the story to a conclusion. He touches on why we are fat but never really reaches an answer, touches on what obesity does to us but never really drives the point home, and touches on what we can do about it without ever really laying down any firm resolution. I would have liked to see less conjecture about liquid calories and more facts about the changes in our world. I found myself leaving the book with more questions than I started with.

The book clocks in at a light 170 pages of meat in a large font, and as such, it makes a great introduction, but not a great answer, to a very serious question.

"The World is Fat" is yet another book about the obesity epidemic and the need for weight control and increased activity in our culture. What makes this book different is that the entire world is included. Before reading this book, I didn't know that so many other countries are in the same boat as the U.S., whether they are a "developed" country such as Australia, or an emerging nation, such as Chile or Mexico. What an amazing change in just a handful of years! According to the statistics in this book, over 51% of Chileans are overweight or obese. I lived in Chile for a short time during the mid-90's and I RARELY saw overweight people. In fact, the Chileans would ask me why so many Americans were fat because it was rare in their culture to see heavy people. Also interesting were the author's comparisons of life in the 50's to present-day in terms of food intake and activity level. This book shines in all of the cold, hard facts it gives you, both in terms of calories then and now, and in terms of historical comparisons from the 50s, 60s, 80s and now.

I do not believe, though, that this book is 100% correct in its opinions or its research. To give a small example, the author mentions that in Europe (specifically France, Spain, and Italy) it's not uncommon to see small children drink wine with meals and says that in his opinion this "clearly" is why their youth have less problems with alcohol than our nation. I have heard many people throw this around as if it's both truth and common knowledge "yeah, in France they let little kids drink!" Having lived in both France and Spain, I would ask people if they let their children drink wine. I expected to hear "yes," but the answer was an overwhelming no! They do have a drinking age over there (16). Likewise, in all of the family gatherings and parties I attended in either country, I NOT ONCE saw a small child given alcohol. Maybe Barry Popkin also needs to realize that in France and Spain, at least, one major reason for less binge drinking on the part of the youth is that the cultures consider it an embarrassment and a disgrace to be drunk, whereas our culture finds it "funny". The adults don't drink to a stupor and so neither do the kids, but in our culture where the older generation drinks too much and makes light of it (as well as overwhelming media support of drunk=entertaining), introducing alcohol at an earlier age would probably just give us more poor behavior at even younger ages unless our culture stops socially encouraging and tolerating drunkenness.

The strong points of the book are its history of food intake, its explanation of food politics (fascinating to read about how the foods that are subsidized in our country are the opposite of what we're needing to eat). There are also some ideas put on the table of how we might go about encouraging the culture as a whole to change its eating habits (with the methods most likely to succeed being those that hit people in the pocketbook).

I would not recommend this book on an individual level for someone who's looking for a way to lose weight, nor is it billed as such. The author is not a weight loss expert and his ideas are: 1)eliminate drink calories, 2)find a way to get more active, and 3) eliminate unhealthy foods from your diet until the weight is gone (a few weeks to a month). Of course, someone who has a true weight problem is not going to be "done" in the course of a month or less! The author also states that the human diet from our "gathering" stage was our healthiest time nutritionally, with almost all of our diet composed of berries and grasses/leaves, though by the end of the book, he makes it clear that the diet he advocates encourages fruits and vegetables however, and most importantly, is one that is lower in calories, regardless of whether you eat red meat, dairy, etc.

I hate to write a review for a book I didn't finish, but I felt I just had to for this one. This book is okay, but there were two things about it that rather drove me to distraction.

For one, I really didn't see much in here that I haven't seen somewhere else. High-fructose corn syrup in sodas? Check. Americans don't get enough exercise? Check. Weight is a simple matter of calories in minus calories expended? Check. Larger serving sizes? Check. The rest of the world following bad American habits? Check.

The other was Popkin's writing style. It was a little hard to put my finger on it, but it seemed rather choppy. Sentences tended to be very punchy and short, with poor transitions from one to another. Paragraphs sometimes covered several, not-especially-related topics.

I really wanted to finish this one, but between these two problems, I just felt I had to get up from the table and move onto something a little more nourishing.

I really wanted to like this book. However, if you've read any literature in this area, you quickly realize that Popkin doesn't have anything genuinely new to add, except for perhaps a heavier focus on how the obesity epidemic is not just an American issue. The most disappointing part of the book has to be Popkin's proposed solutions, which are either repeats of existing ideas or propositions that are not feasible. Unless you know nothing about this area of study coming in, you probably won't get much out of this one.

As a Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Barry Popkin has made the study of nutrition and obesity his life work. In the World is Fat, he explains how changes in diet and lifestyle have resulted in an alarming increase in obesity during recent decades. The fact that Americans are heavier is no secret, but Popkin shows that this phenomenon is global: he cites examples from Mexico, China, and India. Unfortunately the consequences of obesity are not, and Popkin runs through the laundry list of health problems and economic ramifications an overweight population brings.

Chapters are devoted to causes of weight gain, including the usual suspects such as reduced movement, sugary drinks, and convenience food. Although Popkin pulls no punches when criticism is warranted, he also makes an valiant effort to be fair by pointing out positive changes that some companies in the food industry have made. (In the case of McDonald's, their efforts to reduce portion size were met by an increase in portion size by competitor Burger King; eager to cash in on the big eating McDonald's tried to discourage.)

The last chapter of The World is Fat is a breath of fresh air after the many books that point out problems but fail to offer concrete solutions. In it the author makes suggestions for changes on the individual, nationwide and international levels to help reverse the alarming trend of obesity. The individual changes are not surprising (reduce caloric intake, take the stairs instead of the elevator), but the large scale ideas just might work if they are implemented. Basically Popkin proposes the obesity be handled in the same way as smoking cessation - tax so individuals and corporations have a financial incentive to encourage nutrition, then use the revenue to fund support programs.

The World is Fat is a lean book and easy read. It should appeal to fans of Michael Pollan, Fast Food Nation, and others concerned about the food industry.

Dr. Popkin's book "The World is Fat" finally creates sturdy connection between in-depth academic research and the people who the research is done for to make this world a healthier place. His warm yet bold writing, written to anyone and everyone who care about the health of our society, builds a bridge to cross from anxious thoughts to the hopeful dream for a better tomorrow. And whoever walks on the bridge can be assured that the trip is secure, as he or she is guided by the world renowned researcher.

Science is surprisingly clear on what make people become fat, but current actions to stop the trends are astoundingly dull. Like the tobacco battle, it's not that we didn't know smoking was bad for us until recently (scientists documented the harmful effects of smoking fifty years ago already). It was the huge gap between the scientific knowledge and the people's perception about the matter, often altered by conflicting interests of various groups. When we are in the middle of it, it is hard to know what is causing the situation and who are behind all these. What is exciting about this book "The World is Fat" is that Dr. Popkin provides the whole picture--from the science to the politics--that affects our weight and health WHILE we are in the midst of it.

Sometimes by story-telling and sometimes by visionary statements, he provides a complete story of where we were, where we are, and where we are heading to--and he makes it clear that depending on what actions we take now our paths can look very different. Some of the stories that he reveals from his uniquely privileged experiences as an extremely distinguished researcher are eye-opening even to a nutritionist.

This book provided me with the hope that the gap between what we know and what we act can be closed quickly as more and more people become aware of the whole picture of the fattening world through this book. There are numerous things that need to happen to combat the obesity epidemic. As Dr. Popkin puts, clearly it needs interventions at the policy level by caring policy makers. However I do not see how these can be accomplished without the support and commitment from individuals who understand the entire state of affairs in regards to our fattening society. I commend his truthful efforts to speak aloud about this very important matter and to empower people to make positive changes for a healthier world.

Informative. I carried away a new awareness of the way the technological revolution is changing our everyday lives...including the way we eat.

Popkin may scatter his own personal history a bit too much into this well-researched book, but it doesn't change the weight or the importance of the message: we are killing ourselves with the food we eat. Our choices, from fast food, to high calorie foods, to morbid inactivity are not just a US, but a global problem and Popkin calls us to action to change our patterns. We should listen to him.

Getting nutrition information from a food economist is generally a bad idea (like getting medical advice from a drug company - oh wait, we do that too!). Couple of things to keep in mind: His research is all epidemiological. That is, he studies population trends. While that sort of study can be informative, it only generates hypothesis, it NEVER proves cause & effect. Second, the research he does is going to be funded by the powers-that-be in nutrition, namely government-backed grants. And in case you've forgotten, the government actually wants us to eat highly-processed, nutritionally-empty, commodity-based food products. What are the USDA's top 3 food commodities? Wheat, corn, soy. NOT beef and dairy. While all the vegetarians in America would love for us to think that the powerful food lobbies are the ones encouraging us to eat animal products, that is not the case. Creating low-fat, whole-grain "nutritional" food that is processed, fortified, enriched, and otherwise far removed from its orgins and then sold to the American public as health food is a far greater threat to our health than a steak. If you want the real scoop on why the US (and the world) is fat, read Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories.

I bought this book for a college seminar class I will be taking in the fall. It put a smile on my face before I even started to read it. It should prove to be a very interesting class.