The Obesity Reality
A Comprehensive Approach to a Growing Problem
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- $32.99
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- $32.99
Publisher Description
Although every day we read news reports linking health problems to diet and lifestyle, there remains a dearth of books on the topic that consider obesity from a variety of standpoints that include medical, personal, financial, and related considerations. The Obesity Reality discusses these viewpoints to explain how and why the problem exists both in the United States and around the world, and in men, women, children.
More than a billion people are overweight and that number is expected to increase substantially over the next decade. How can we live past 90 while being obese? How can we remain healthy until our last breath? During the last decade, doctors have been successfully applying medical principles to the search for an obesity cure. But there is no magic medication, no vaccine that can head off the obesity epidemic as sweeps across the planet. Dr. Ali discusses the realities of obesity and its repercussions, which include poor health, high medical costs, restrictions on lifestyle and activities, and more. He shows how we can address obesity, starting in childhood, to prevent it from getting worse, both on a personal and on a societal level, and how we can reverse its effects through proper diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices as well as medical procedures and medications.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Obesity is a worldwide epidemic that shows no signs of abating. Ali (Diabetes and You: A Comprehensive, Holistic Approach) offers readers an overview of the history of condition (from the Venus of Willendorf to the Catholic church's stance that obesity was "a punishment for gorgers"), its causes (e.g., sugary drinks), how it affects the health of the individual (e.g., increased risk of heart disease), how it affects society (e.g., taking up more and more of the total US medical expenditures) and how it can be addressed. In examining topics ranging from the role of the food industry, to how gastric bypass surgery works, to appropriate exercise regimens, Ali covers all of obesity's bases (except recipes). However, despite the breadth of this volume, Ali's work functions better as a general survey of what the author asserts is a dangerous disease, rather than an in-depth study of the eating epidemic. Occasionally dubious statistical syllogisms (e.g., noting that the U.S. national average for adult obesity in 1980 was 15%, then asserting that "Childhood obesity rates have more than tripled since 1980") though thoroughly sourced in a detailed notes section temper what might otherwise be powerful insights into the tipping of the scales. Still, Ali dutifully provides an extensive glossary of relevant terms, and a compendium of resources for folks struggling with obesity and those interested in further reading.
