Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World
by: Greg Critser
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What in American society has changed so dramatically that nearly 60 percent of us are now overweight, plunging the nation into what the surgeon general calls an "epidemic of obesity"? Greg Critser engages every aspect of American life - class, politics, culture, and economics - to show how we have made ourselves the second fattest people on the planet (after South Sea Islanders).
Fat Land highlights the groundbreaking research that implicates cheap fats and sugars as the alarming new metabolic factor making our calories stick and shows how and why children are too often the chief metabolic victims of such foods. No one else writing on fat America takes as hard a line as Critser on the institutionalized lies we've been telling ourselves about how much we can eat and how little we can exercise. His expose of the Los Angeles schools' opening of the nutritional floodgates in the lunchroom and his examination of the political and cultural forces that have set the bar on American fitness low and then lower, are both discerning reporting and impassioned wake-up calls.
Disarmingly funny, Fat Land leaves no diet book - including Dr. Atkins's - unturned. Fashions, both leisure and street, and American-style religion are subject to Critser's gimlet eye as well. Memorably, Fat Land takes on baby-boomer parenting shibboleths - that young children won't eat past the point of being full and that the dinner table isn't the place to talk about food rules - and gives advice many families will use to lose.
Critser's brilliantly drawn futuristic portrait of a Fat America just around the corner and his all too contemporary foray into the diabetes ward of a major children's hospital make Fat Land a chilling but brilliantly rendered portrait of the cost in human lives - many of them very young lives - of America's obesity epidemic.
What in American society has changed so dramatically that nearly 60 percent of us are now overweight, plunging the nation into what the surgeon general calls an "epidemic of obesity"? Greg Critser engages every aspect of American life - class, politics, culture, and economics - to show how we have made ourselves the second fattest people on the planet (after South Sea Islanders).
Fat Land highlights the groundbreaking research that implicates cheap fats and sugars as the alarming new metabolic factor making our calories stick and shows how and why children are too often the chief metabolic victims of such foods. No one else writing on fat America takes as hard a line as Critser on the institutionalized lies we've been telling ourselves about how much we can eat and how little we can exercise. His expose of the Los Angeles schools' opening of the nutritional floodgates in the lunchroom and his examination of the political and cultural forces that have set the bar on American fitness low and then lower, are both discerning reporting and impassioned wake-up calls.
Disarmingly funny, Fat Land leaves no diet book - including Dr. Atkins's - unturned. Fashions, both leisure and street, and American-style religion are subject to Critser's gimlet eye as well. Memorably, Fat Land takes on baby-boomer parenting shibboleths - that young children won't eat past the point of being full and that the dinner table isn't the place to talk about food rules - and gives advice many families will use to lose.
Critser's brilliantly drawn futuristic portrait of a Fat America just around the corner and his all too contemporary foray into the diabetes ward of a major children's hospital make Fat Land a chilling but brilliantly rendered portrait of the cost in human lives - many of them very young lives - of America's obesity epidemic.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Just part of the story
Although I haven't read this excellent book in entirety, I couldn't wait to comment and to add to it. I currently live in China, and in fact, the Chinese eat more than Americans do, and they enjoy eating much more. Here, it seems that people are either eating, preparing to eat or just finishing eating. A typical lunch or dinner can take two hours to finish, and customers at restaurants will commonly spend 20 minutes just pouring over the encyclopedic menus and discussing the finer points of dishes ... Read More
Rating: 
- A Mixed Bag
Fat Land is an interesting introduction to the topic of obesity as a public-health issue. The book, however, is very uneven and the author has no promising solutions.
At its best, Fat Land is an absorbing look at a critical issue that much of the public refuses to face. The author, Greg Critser, can make esoteric government decisions seem interesting. Some of his anecdotes - such as one about the 698-pound rap star Big Pun - are fascinating. I doubt that many people will walk away from ... Read More
Rating: 
- an in-depth look at reasons beyond the usual
As a dietitian, this book fascinates me not only due to the food/nutrition overview of the causes/etiology of obesity, but also the whole story behind the food production in the US.The book provides a historical overview of how high fructose corny syrup became popular as well as speculation on this obesity issue in the US/world. I loved it!
Rating: - Scary
This book examines some of the various factors behind the current obesity epidemic in the United States.Critser, who formerly indulged in junk food himself, came to the realization one day that he was fat.He determined to do something about it, and put himself on a strict diet and fitness plan to get back in shape.Along the way, he also decided to investigate not only how he had managed to put on so much weight, but also how his neighbors and their kids had managed to become some of the fattest ... Read More
Rating: - The New Cultural Obesity
When I returned from the Peace Corps in Africa to the US the first thing that struck me was how heavy people were.I did not return from a country suffering from famine, the people there were mostly in excellent shape considering their situation and it was the first time I had really noticed with a new perspective how heavy Americans were.This struck again when I had spent some time hiking in the west and returned to the mid west to see the inactive people away from the trails of the national parks ... Read More
- Just part of the storyAlthough I haven't read this excellent book in entirety, I couldn't wait to comment and to add to it. I currently live in China, and in fact, the Chinese eat more than Americans do, and they enjoy eating much more. Here, it seems that people are either eating, preparing to eat or just finishing eating. A typical lunch or dinner can take two hours to finish, and customers at restaurants will commonly spend 20 minutes just pouring over the encyclopedic menus and discussing the finer points of dishes ... Read More
- A Mixed BagFat Land is an interesting introduction to the topic of obesity as a public-health issue. The book, however, is very uneven and the author has no promising solutions.
At its best, Fat Land is an absorbing look at a critical issue that much of the public refuses to face. The author, Greg Critser, can make esoteric government decisions seem interesting. Some of his anecdotes - such as one about the 698-pound rap star Big Pun - are fascinating. I doubt that many people will walk away from ... Read More
- an in-depth look at reasons beyond the usualAs a dietitian, this book fascinates me not only due to the food/nutrition overview of the causes/etiology of obesity, but also the whole story behind the food production in the US.The book provides a historical overview of how high fructose corny syrup became popular as well as speculation on this obesity issue in the US/world. I loved it!
- Scary This book examines some of the various factors behind the current obesity epidemic in the United States.Critser, who formerly indulged in junk food himself, came to the realization one day that he was fat.He determined to do something about it, and put himself on a strict diet and fitness plan to get back in shape.Along the way, he also decided to investigate not only how he had managed to put on so much weight, but also how his neighbors and their kids had managed to become some of the fattest ... Read More
- The New Cultural ObesityWhen I returned from the Peace Corps in Africa to the US the first thing that struck me was how heavy people were.I did not return from a country suffering from famine, the people there were mostly in excellent shape considering their situation and it was the first time I had really noticed with a new perspective how heavy Americans were.This struck again when I had spent some time hiking in the west and returned to the mid west to see the inactive people away from the trails of the national parks ... Read More
