Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic

Cover Art for 9780195118537, Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic by Robert Pool
ISBN: 9780195118537
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 31 January, 2001
Format: Hardcover
Links Australian Libraries (Trove)

Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic, by science writer Robert Pool, is the story of obesity research: the quest to find out why people get fat, why certain people are more likely to gain weight than others, why it's so difficult to lose weight, how the body's weight-regulating system works, how genes and environment interact to produce obesity, and why dieters regain their weight more than 90 percent of the time. Pool presents story after story about the obesity scientists and their research, along with the evolution of social attitudes about corpulence. Some of the anecdotes are entertaining, such as the description of a 1911 experiment where a researcher inflated a condom in his belly, attached to a tube that went through his esophagus and out his mouth, to measure stomach contractions during hunger. Others may make you shudder, such as the story of 515-pound J.W., who lost weight in a hospital on a 600- to 800-calorie liquid diet 25 times, always rebounding afterwards to his previous weight. Pool favors the leptin gene as a major clue to the mystery of obesity and treats it with more scientific detail than any other topic. Leptin, Pool explains, "regulates appetite and metabolism to keep the body at a stable, preferred weight." The brains of people with a mutation that results in deficient leptin production perceive their bodies as perpetually starving--even though they may be 50 or 100 pounds overweight. Fat isn't a quick read and it won't tell you h

Booko is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

Shop Preferences

Customize which shops to display. You can include the following shops by logging in to change your settings.

Booko is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

Historical Prices

Loading...
This graph is for informational purposes only. Occasionally pricing data is captured incorrectly, through bugs in Booko or the stores supplying data, which may distort the graph, providing undue hope that even lower prices sometimes appear.

Recently Updated