Product Description
“Campos makes his case against the “fat kills” dogma with unimpeachable evidence. The Obesity Myth should be required reading for every health professional in America. I believe any open-minded person who reads this book will conclude that we’ve been duped by a pack of self-serving lies. And we cannot get at the truth without first recognizing those lies. The Obesity Myth is a great place to start.” —Glenn A. Gaesser, Ph.D., professor and director, Kinesiology Program, University of Virginia

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 obesity
* What the movie industry’s love affair with the “fat suit” tells us about the relationship between racial- and body-based prejudice in America
* How the skinny elite—with 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 America’s increasingly irrational weight debate.

Amazon.com Review
When an entire society is told that thinner is better and studies everywhere agree diets don't work, it's time to take a look at the assumptions behind the messages. For better or worse, this happens in Paul Campos' (Jurismania) book The Obesity Myth. Packed full of lengthy discussions of popular studies (particularly the Harvard nurses study), dense chapters run through statistics and conclusions at a breathtaking pace. Campos regularly insists on two points: BMI is basically meaningless, and a variety of media-based sources are contributing to an enormous industry that blends oversized portions with trendy, potentially harmful, diets. He grabs attention to the first claim with early assertions that by BMI standards, Brad Pitt is overweight and George Clooney is obese; more detailed discussion covers how insurance companies developed the BMI tables in their earliest forms and the federal government later tinkered with measurements in a way that accounts for much of the sudden "explosion" in obesity (yes, a BMI chart is included at the end of the book). Repeatedly, Campos rails against media stars whose main qualification is their leanness, questions medical conclusions, and demands that we look at weight as a class issue. Also highlighted is the idea of the diet industry being an extremely powerful political force, which may be at the root of the controversy; the hollering about his sources is likely to be louder than the comments about his accuracy in assessing those sources. As with any highly inflammatory topic, a single book presents only a part of the whole picture--but the myth-busting opinions offered here are an important part of the weight-based discussions. --Jill Lightner

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 53 reviews)

A Sane Look at an Increasingly Insane Issue

This was an interesting read...I do think that Campos oversimplifies things a bit...but I also think he's right about the "obsession" over dieting and the effects of "yo-yo" dieting being more "dangerous" than just maintaining one's weight and being at least moderately active. I've long felt that weight is not as big an issue as it's being made out to be and that healthy living and increased activity are far more important than being pencil thin. I maintain (though Campos book does not say as much) that along with increasingly sedentary lifestyles, processed "convenience" and "fast food" are the biggest problems "we" face. I'd defiantly recommend this, though I'd also recommend the reader use a few grains of salt and expect the same message to be repeated at last a dozen times in the book...but overall, I think he has a good point that offers some sanity in an increasingly insane view of weight and health in the U.S. today. I give it a B+.
June 29, 2008

Brilliant

This is one of the most brilliant books I've read on the subject. It completely exposes how Americans and the government have trapped themselves into a lifetime sentence of self-restriction and half-living. We must break free of this.
April 07, 2008

Tells it Like it Is

If you want to see how the government and doctors and others are trying to convince us how the majority of us are killing ourselves with fat, read this book.

Fat fit people are healthier than skinny unfit people.

Read the book and learn more.
June 17, 2007

They have been lying to us again.

This is a very interesting book. It is not a book that will tell you how to become a normal eater, although it is obvious that he not only knows about normal eating trends, but approves of them. The book is mainly about how the diet industry has been lying to us about the obesity research out there, and how 95% or more of all diets result in people not just gaining it all back, mostly very quickly, but gaining back more than they lost in the first place. He also says that the height/weight charts are not reasonable and that the whole BMI thing is a fraud.

His main focus is that a person who is overweight, or even obese, is not necessarily unhealthy. If they are active physically, they can be more healthy than someone who is very thin and sedentary. He also thinks that the point where the height/weight charts say a person is overweight, and the second place where they are supposed to be obese, are set way too low.

And then he had to admit he had been losing weight the whole time he was writing, and that it ended up being a substantial amount of weight. He knows that part of it was that he began running in races, so he was training for competition for the first time in his life. I think he also began normal eating techniques, and what he calls healthy eating. Not a weight loss diet, but a diet for health that most people would not lose weight on.

Most of the normal eating books go into some of the material in this book in an attempt to explain why we need to give diets up, but they don't have the room for it in this detail. He after all, used 250 pages to tell his story.
May 08, 2006

Eye Opening

This book made me think in a whole new way about todays culture. I didn't agree with every thing in it but it made me open my eyes to so much that I think it is a must read for anyone no matter what their size.
March 22, 2006

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