USA Places - Food Fight: The Inside Story of The Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do About It
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List Price: $18.95
USA Places Price: $12.89
Your Save: $ 6.06 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 610
EAN: 9780071438728
ISBN: 0071438726
Label: McGraw-Hill
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 356
Publication Date: 2004-09-16
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Studio: McGraw-Hill
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Editorial Reviews:
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"The evergreen subject of American gluttony and sloth brings out the best in scientist-advocates, and the authors, while drawing on a mountain of statistics and studies, make their indictment both funny and appalling."
--Publishers Weekly . "Brownell and Horgen uncover some of America's biggest diet hazards and how to avoid them."
--Self magazine . "This is a fascinating, empowering must-read filled with practical ways to take action."
--Shape magazine . "Food Fight is . . . an important contribution to the discourse around the obesity epidemic. I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn more about the role of the food industry, and especially to public health advocates looking for clearly presented research and ideas for positive change."
--Michele Simon, founder and director of the Center for Informed Food Choices .
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Practical
Comment: This is more of a practical manual on how to get some change done than a page turner meant for entertainment. I laud the authors for this, but for those of us who don't have time to get out and become community organizers, I think other books offer the same expose.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Some good information but they miss the mark
Comment: There's some very good research revealed in this book however the authors ignore (or simply don't know) the true to the culprit of obesity.... processed carbohydrates. They are right on track with corporate America's involvement with our obesity epidemic however they believe fat and calories play a role in body fat...they don't. I lost 70lbs in 3 months consuming 4000-5000 calories a day, 400 fat grams per day. I simply avoided man altered carbs (not natural carbs).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bite-Sized Solutions to a Super-Sized Problem
Comment: After reading the first few chapters of Food Fight, I thought "same old stuff." Americans are too fat, eat a poor diet, don't get enough exercise, what else is new.
After a few more chapters, I became overwhelmed with the magnitude of the problem. The fast food companies and agribusiness corporations are too powerful, health care organizations are not really interested in solving the problem, and even the schools are inundated with Channel One advertising and contracts from soft drink companies. How on earth can we even begin to address this problem? Is there any hope?
Then Brownell gets into solutions. Of course the individual needs to take responsibility and eat less, eat better, and exercise more. But communities need to demand changes, such as limits on what kind of advertising the kids see while they are in school, classes (for kids and adults) on nutrition and exercise, neighborhood walking and bicycle paths in safe places. And governments should be involved as well, providing national ad spots about health and fitness, perhaps using the anti-tobacco campaigns as a guideline.
Brownell discusses the solutions in the last part of the book, then ends with a handy summary of recommended actions. What starts as a rather depressing book turns out to be a positive, optimistic look at what we can do at different levels to tackle a growing problem.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's not my fault, save the children and other clichés
Comment: I've read both the book and the reviews, and it's funny how saving the children is the "it's not my fault" finger-pointing device du jour. I don't purport to be a cross-section of America, but I have no problems getting my toddlers out of a grocery store without their Sponge-Bob cereal (my wife is a different story...she loves the stuff) and can drive by a McDonalds while ignoring the shrieks of "we want a happy meal!"
However, I am overweight. I don't blame Kraft or McDonalds (although I wouldn't mind getting in on that cash cow once the lawsuits hit), I can perfectly well on my own decide to down the entire bag of Oreos without a 30-second ad telling me to.
Mr. Brownell's anecdotal descriptions of the effects of advertising on obesity do not create any link. As a matter of fact (forget citation of study...but could look it up if anyone wants it) the amount of calories consumed by the average person has increased about 1% over the last 20 years, while the obesity rate has soared. So...somehow the food industry has been plotting against my children by adding 400% more calories into that 1%? It doesn't make sense, as do most of the arguments in the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Weak Argument
Comment: Yes, fast food is everywhere. No, Americans don't eat enough "real" food (that is, food which was prepared from fresh, natural ingredients). Yes, if we ate more real food and less fast food, we'd be healthier.
But here's where Dr. Brownell goes wrong. He pushes the popular myth (already rejected by cooler heads within the medical profession) that if we were healthier, we'd automatically be *slimmer.* As others have mentioned, he doesn't take individual choice into account. Nor does he so much as mention the ill effects of dieting; from a researcher of eating disorders, such an oversight seems huge.
It has also already been said that Dr. Brownell--also the author of several weight-loss books--is himself a fat man. Does this mean that he *himself* follows an unhealthy lifestyle rather than heeding his own advice to others...and is therefore no better off than anyone *else* his size? Or does it mean that weight loss is *not,* in fact, always a health solution or even a likelihood--and that he is therefore a living flaw in his own argument? Let the reader be the judge.
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