Product Description
It seems almost daily we read newspaper articles and watch news reports exposing the growing epidemic of obesity in America. Our government tells us we are experiencing a major health crisis, with sixty percent of Americans classified as overweight, and one in four as obese. But how valid are these claims? In Fat Politics, J. Eric Oliver shows how a handful of doctors, government bureaucrats, and health researchers, with financial backing from the drug and weight-loss industries, have campaigned to create standards that mislead the public. They mislabel more than sixty million Americans as "overweight," inflate the health risks of being fat, and promote the idea that obesity is a killer disease. In reviewing the scientific evidence, Oliver shows there is little proof that obesity causes so much disease and death or that losing weight is what makes people healthier. Our concern with obesity, he writes, is fueled more by social prejudice, bureaucratic politics, and industry profit than by scientific fact. Misinformation pushes millions of Americans towards dangerous surgeries, crash diets, and harmful diet drugs, while we ignore other, more real health problems. Oliver goes on to examine why it is that Americans despise fatness and explores why, despite this revulsion, we continue to gain weight. Fat Politics will topple your most basic assumptions about obesity and health. It is essential reading for anyone with a stake in the nation's--or their own--good health.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 13 reviews)

Don't bother by TB (Emerald Triangle)

1 Stars
August 04, 2009
Two quotes from the last paragraph of Oliver's book sum up his premise: 1)"We have no clear evidence that excess fat is, by itself, harmful for most Americans. Indeed, about the worst thing that comes from being heavy is that it puts great pressure on people's joints and inhibits their ability to exercise." 2)"The best way we can begin to solve the obesity epidemic is not by trying to get everyone to lose weight, but by no longer making weight a subject of official concern." (This is the last sentence of the book.) In other words, the large number of obese Americans isn't a problem. We should all just quit worrying so much about it and have another slice of pie. I can agree that excess fat, by itself, may not be doing much damage. However, the fat is a byproduct of a lifestyle that is indeed doing an enormous amount of damage to all of us via increased demands on our health care system. As if an inability to exercise will have no impact on our health! I disagree with Oliver that it is in our best interests as a nation to remove weight as a subject of official concern. It is affecting all of us, every day, and getting worse with every bite.

Well-researched by Pamela S. Lee (North Carolina)

4 Stars
June 28, 2009
As someone who does a lot of reading on this topic, I don't agree with everything in this book. However, I appreciate the amount of research the author did before writing it. The book is informative- just don't let it be your only source of information on obesity as it is definitely biased.

Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America's Obesity Epidemic by Héctor (Madrid, Spain)

5 Stars
January 31, 2009
Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America's Obesity Epidemic shows you a reality about fat industry who everybody should know, it has been easy readable and open your mind to hte true behind obesity. Strong recommended

Fascinating research, weak conclusion by Dr. T. Welsh

4 Stars
February 03, 2008
Fat Politics is a gripping read because it highlights how certain oft-repeated mantras about weight can start to achieve the status of "truth" even though there is little empirical backing for these claims. Indeed, what is most disturbing, as Oliver outlines, is how the media replays and fails to really investigate claims that quickly associate weight with ill-health. Oliver also deftly shows how the ideas of what is classified as "overweight" and "obese" are constructed and hence permits us to get away from a kind of "scientism" where we believe anything passed off as fact is indeed so. My only criticism is the book seems to just end and not really conclude or suggest new paths of inquiry. While it certainly seems to be the case that politics, and not careful research, motivates our hysteria about weight, what is the connection between the research on health and weight? He thinks snacking mindless calories is some kind of answer (he uses his cookie-dough in the fridge as an example) and this "conclusion" is weak in comparison with the first part of the book which is compelling and well-researched. In one is interested in more elaborate discussion of weight and science surrounding weight, look at the Obsesity Epidemic which is a drier and less fun read but provides more quality research around just how little we really do know about the connection between weight and health.

Mostly right but by Shalom Freedman (Jerusalem,Israel)

5 Stars
November 01, 2006
In the opening chapter of this book Oliver shows just how unclear and arbitrary are notions of what it is to be 'fat' or 'overweight'. This will be the first step in making the argument that the present hysteria over the 'overweight epidemic 'in the United States is just that 'hysteria'. He will go on in the book to confute the notion that overweight is the main factor in most major illnesses. He will make a strong argument that vested economic interests, including drug and insurance companies have promoted the 'America is Fat' campaign. He too will make the case that a more critical health factor than one's weight is one's physical fitness, dependent in good part on the way one exercises. All of this is in one sense very convincing. And yet there are clear signs and statistical evidence indicating that Americans have in the past ten years alone become considerably heavier. Oliver acknowledges that being very overweight does contribute to arthritis , aching joints, and makes physical activity more difficult. Moreover feeling overweight and feeling pain because of it connect very probably with an increased level of individual depression . I am not a specialist in any of these areas, but my overall feeling is that while there may be much exaggeration, panicking, idiotic worshipping of thinness, futile and even damaging dieting, there is also a lot of illness and sorrow which comes from being overweight and worrying so much about it. Oliver is probably right that this is not as massive a problem as it is being made out to be. But I do not think he is right to by and large deny its existence.

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