Word: fats
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...religion or politics, but if you want to get a real fight going, talk about your diet. The low-fat vs. low-carb battle got ugly last week, with both sides arguing over how hefty a corpse Dr. Robert Atkins left behind. Not since the death of Ayatullah Khomeini have people fought so much over a dead body. From the moment Atkins died from head injuries after slipping on a patch of ice in Manhattan last April at age 72, the low-fat fanatics have been trying to prove the low-carb guru had been on a diet to disaster...
...sweaty-browed, ruddy-cheeked fat kid who’s always picked last for the dodgeball team is the implicit protagonist of journalist Greg Critser’s Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, a cultural history of fat America released in paperback this January (Mariner Books 2004). What first started as a Harper’s Magazine cover story on obesity evolved into an insightful 200-page glimpse into a land of Super Mario Brothers, 7-11 Big Gulps and the expanding extra-large sweat pants sported by an increasing mass of dodgeball-hating...
...weren’t always this fat. The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports has focused on the prevention of sedentary lifestyles since 1956. Critser quotes John F. Kennedy, who expanded the council and likened promoting fitness to political strategy: “We do not want our children to become a nation of spectators. Rather, we want each of them to be a participant in the vigorous life...
Thus one is not born, but instead becomes, the easy dodgeball target. Though Critser devotes ample time to the hereditary factors of obesity, he offers more compelling insights into the hazardous environmental factors feeding the fat kid, which include the school cafeteria, the fast food restaurant and the American living room...
Crister’s Fat Land is more than just another suger-coated exploration of cultural history. It demands that we step on the scale, face our problems and come up with palatable solutions. Will anyone in corporate America step up to the plate and eliminate the evils of trans fats or high fructose corn syrup, repackage products with smaller portion sizes (like the eight ounce soda cans sold in parts of Europe), or even discontinue jumbo single serving product lines? What role should the government take? Is it necessary to place a “fat tax?...