Is your weight hazardous to your health? According to public-health authorities, 65 percent of us are overweight. Every day, we are bombarded with dire warnings about America's'obesity epidemic.'Close to half of the adult population is dieting, obsessed with achieving an arbitrary'ideal weight.'Yet studies show that a moderately active larger person is likely to be far healthier (and to live longer) than someone who is thin but sedentary. And contrary to what the fifty-billion-dollar-per-year weight-loss industry would have us believe medical science has not yet come up with a way to make people thin.After years spent scrutinizing medical studies and interviewing leading doctors, scientists, eating- disorder specialists, and psychiatrists, Professor Paul Campos is here to lead the backlash against weight hysteria—and to show that we can safeguard our health without obsessing about the numbers on the scale. But The Obesity Myth is not just a compelling argument, grounded in the latest scientific research; it's also a provocative, wry exposé of the culture that feeds on our self-defeating war on fat. Campos will show: How the nation's most prestigious and trusted media sources consistently misinform the public about obesityWhat the movie industry's love affair with the'fat suit'tells us about the relationship between racial- and body-based prejudice in AmericaHow the skinny elite—with their'supersized'lifestyles and gas-guzzling SUVs—project their anxieties about overconsumption on the poorer and heavier underclassHow weight-loss mania fueled the impeachment of Bill Clinton In this paradigm-busting read, Professor Campos challenges the conventional wisdom regarding the medical, political, and cultural meaning of weight and brings a rational and compelling new voice to America's increasingly irrational weight debate.

Campos, Paul F

New York: Gotham Books

United States, United States of America

1st Edition, First Edition, FR, 2004

May 3, 2004

Is your weight hazardous to your health? According to public-health authorities, 65 percent of us are overweight. Every day, we are bombarded with dire warnings about America's obesity epidemic. Close to half of the adult population is dieting, obsessed with achieving an arbitrary ideal weight. Yet studies show that a moderately active larger person is likely to be far healthier (and to live longer) than someone who is thin but sedentary. And contrary to what the fifty-billion-dollar-per-year weight-loss industry would have us believe medical science has not yet come up with a way to make people thin.
After years spent scrutinizing medical studies and interviewing leading doctors, scientists, eating- disorder specialists, and psychiatrists, Professor Paul Campos is here to lead the backlash against weight hysteria -- and to show that we can safeguard our health without obsessing about the numbers on the scale. But The Obesity Myth is not just a compelling argument, grounded in the latest scientific research; its also a provocative, wry expose of the culture that feeds on our self-defeating war on fat. Campos will show:
* How the nations most prestigious and trusted media sources consistently misinform the public about obesity
* What the movie industrys love affair with the fat suit tells us about the relationship between racial- and body-based prejudice in America
* How the skinny elitewith their supersized lifestyles and gas-guzzling SUVs project their anxieties about overconsumption on the poorer and heavier underclass
* How weight-loss mania fueled the impeachment of Bill Clinton
In this paradigm-busting read, Professor Campos challenges the conventional wisdom regarding the medical, political, and cultural meaning of weight and brings a rational and compelling new voice to Americas increasingly irrational weight debate.

"Is your weight hazardous to your health? According to public-health authorities, 65 percent of us are overweight. Every day, we are bombarded with dire warnings about America's "obesity epidemic." Close to half of the adult population is dieting, obsessed with achieving an arbitrary "ideal weight." Yet studies show that a moderately active larger person is likely to be far healthier (and to live longer) than someone who is thin but sedentary. And contrary to what the fifty-billion-dollar-per-year weight-loss industry would have us believe, medical science has not yet come up with a way to make people thin. After years spent scrutinizing medical studies and interviewing leading doctors, scientists, eating-disorder specialists, and psychiatrists, Professor Paul Campos is here to lead the backlash against weight hysteria -- and to show that we can safeguard our health without obsessing about the numbers on the scale. But The Obesity Myth is not just a compelling argument, grounded in the latest scientific research; it's also a provocative, wry expose of the culture that feeds our self-defeating war on fat. In this paradigm-busting read, Professor Campos challenges the conventional wisdom regarding the medical, political, and cultural meaning of weight and brings a rational and compelling new voice to America's increasingly irrational weight debate. Book jacket."--Jacket

"In this book, Paul Campos examines the current media frenzy surrounding weight-loss issues. He delves into the realm of statistics and epidemiology to explore the foundations for this rising tide of fear and loathing surrounding body fat, and finds little or no scientific basis for that fear, except in regard to the small minority of people who are at the extremes of body weight : the very thin and the very fat. He explores the cultural sources of our current panic over weight, and discovers the fingerprints of a multibillion-dollar weight loss industry at every turn. But rather than pointing to medical-industrial conspiracies, he identifies long-standing cultural and social trends as the underlying forces that fuel the obesity myth ... In doing so, he provides us with an entertaining and enlightening treatment of a topic that for too long has been the subject of fear-driven hysteria, rather than rational debate". Paul Ernsberger, [Foreword]

An exploration of America's self-defeating war on obesity argues against the myth that falsely equates thinness with health and explains why dieting is bad for the health and how the media misinform the public.

xxvi, 290 p. ; 22 cm
Includes bibliographical references (p. 275) and indexes

2023-06-28