Does the obesity epidemic require radical countermeasures? Contrary to the obesity crusaders' belief, this work argues that we cannot overcome the obesity problem through legislation.

Toxic Food Nation; Why the American Diet Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It is a wake-up call to all Americans about the typical American diet, rich in processed foods, fat, sugar, salt, omega-6s, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and hundreds of untested chemicals. This diet triggers chronic inflammation in the body and brain, which leads to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Crohn's disease, arthritis, anxiety, mood and behavior disorders, and cancer. We are now faced with several questions about the safety and toxicity of the American diet. How harmful are these chemicals? Can we rely on the government and food industry to protect us from potential threats to our health? What can we do to protect ourselves? Toxic Food Nation answers all these questions and tells you what the food and chemical industries don't want you to know and why governmental agencies and elected officials remain silent on the subject. Our food supply is laced with dangerous toxic chemicals that will harm you and your loved ones for years to come unless you take action now. Toxic food is now the new tobacco. It took over two decades before the public accepted the fact that tobacco caused cancer. Meanwhile, plastics and pesticides in our food continue to stockpile in our issues for decades, eventually erupting into a full array of chronic diseases in midlife. In Toxic Food Nation Dr. Burnell shows you how to benefit from cutting-edge science, explaining how to protect and enhance your immune system, which is the key to overcome the devastating effects of chronic inflammation. Drawing from clinical and laboratory studies as well as the latest research around the world, Toxic Food Nation gives you a highly practical program of simple dietary recommendations to prevent disease and heal the symptoms that threaten you and your loved ones. In a clear and nontechnical language Dr. Burnell discusses the issues, choices and barriers to overcoming

'Why we eat what we eat?' is a key question for the 1990s, posed again and again in government departments, in sectors of the food industry, by professionals in health, in education, and in catering, to name a few. It is the same question adopted as the springboard for the UK Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) Research Programme on 'The Nation's Diet' (1992-1998), a wide ranging, multi-disciplinary set of co-ordinated basic research projects across the social sciences, including economics, psychology, social anthropology and sociology, as well as education and media studies. Contributors include; Annie S. Anderson, Hannah Bradby, Robert G. Burgess, Michael Burton, Helen Bush, Pat Caplan, Mark Conner, G. Jill Davies, Richard Dorsett, Alan Dowey, John Eldridge, Ben Fine, Andrew Flynn, Leslie Gofton, Susan Gregory, Malcolm Hamilton, Michelle Harrison, Michael Heasman, Spencer Henson, Pauline Horne, Rhiannon James, Anne Keane, Debbie Kemmer, Mike Lean, Diana Leat, Zara Lipsey, C. Fergus Lowe, Sally Macintyre, Terry Marsden, David Marshall, Lydia Martens, David Miller, Marlene Morrison, Elizabeth Murphy, Georgina OIiver, Susan Parker, Christine Phipps, Tessa M. Pollard, Rachel Povey, Jacquie Reilly, Richard Shepard, David Smith, Paul Sparks, Andrew Steptoe, Ann Walker, Alan Warde, Jane Wardle, Anna Willetts, Janice Williams, Rory Williams, Judith Wright, Neil Wrigley, Trevor Young.

The diet and weight-loss industry is worth $66 billion – billion!! The estimated annual health care costs of obesity-related illness are 190 billion or nearly 21% of annual medical spending in the United States. But how did we get here? Is this a battle we can’t win? What changes need to be made in order to scale back the incidence of obesity in the US, and, indeed, around the world? Here, Jonathan Engel reviews the sources of the problem and offers the science behind our modern propensity toward obesity. He offers a plan for helping address the problem, but admits that it is, indeed, an uphill battle. Nevertheless, given the magnitude of the costs in years of life and vigor lost, it is a battle worth fighting. Fat Nation is a social history of obesity in the United States since the second World War. In confronting this familiar topic from a historical perspective, Jonathan Engel attempts to show that obesity is a symptom of complex changes that have transpired over the past half century to our food, our living habits, our life patterns, our built environments, and our social interactions. He offers readers solid grounding in the known science underlying obesity (genetic set points, complex endocrine feedback loops, neurochemical messengering) but then makes the novel argument that obesity is a result of the interaction of our genes with our environment. That is, our bodies have always been programmed to become obese, but until recently never had the opportunity to do so. Now, with cheap calories ubiquitous (particularly in the form of sucrose), unwalkable physical spaces, deteriorating rituals and norms surrounding eating, and the withering of cooking skills, nearly every American daily confronts the challenge of not putting on weight. Given the outcomes, though, for those who are obese, Engel encourages us to address the problems and offers suggestions to help remedy the problem.

In recent decades, America has been waging a veritable war on fat in which not just public health authorities, but every sector of society is engaged in constant "fat talk" aimed at educating, badgering, and ridiculing heavy people into shedding pounds. We hear a great deal about the dangers of fatness to the nation, but little about the dangers of today’s epidemic of fat talk to individuals and society at large. The human trauma caused by the war on fat is disturbing—and it is virtually unknown. How do those who do not fit the "ideal" body type feel being the object of abuse, discrimination, and even revulsion? How do people feel being told they are a burden on the healthcare system for having a BMI outside what is deemed—with little solid scientific evidence—"healthy"? How do young people, already prone to self-doubt about their bodies, withstand the daily assault on their body type and sense of self-worth? In Fat-Talk Nation, Susan Greenhalgh tells the story of today’s fight against excess pounds by giving young people, the campaign’s main target, an opportunity to speak about experiences that have long lain hidden in silence and shame.Featuring forty-five autobiographical narratives of personal struggles with diet, weight, "bad BMIs," and eating disorders, Fat-Talk Nation shows how the war on fat has produced a generation of young people who are obsessed with their bodies and whose most fundamental sense of self comes from their size. It reveals that regardless of their weight, many people feel miserable about their bodies, and almost no one is able to lose weight and keep it off. Greenhalgh argues that attempts to rescue America from obesity-induced national decline are damaging the bodily and emotional health of young people and disrupting families and intimate relationships.Fatness today is not primarily about health, Greenhalgh asserts; more fundamentally, it is about morality and political inclusion/exclusion or citizenship. To unpack the complexity of fat politics today, Greenhalgh introduces a cluster of terms—biocitizen, biomyth, biopedagogy, bioabuse, biocop, and fat personhood—and shows how they work together to produce such deep investments in the attainment of the thin, fit body. These concepts, which constitute a theory of the workings of our biocitizenship culture, offer powerful tools for understanding how obesity has come to remake who we are as a nation, and how we might work to reverse course for the next generation.

Reproduction of the original: Vegetable Diet by Wm. A. Alcott

During the past decade, tremendous growth has occurred in the use of nutrition symbols and rating systems designed to summarize key nutritional aspects and characteristics of food products. These symbols and the systems that underlie them have become known as front-of-package (FOP) nutrition rating systems and symbols, even though the symbols themselves can be found anywhere on the front of a food package or on a retail shelf tag. Though not regulated and inconsistent in format, content, and criteria, FOP systems and symbols have the potential to provide useful guidance to consumers as well as maximize effectiveness. As a result, Congress directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to undertake a study with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to examine and provide recommendations regarding FOP nutrition rating systems and symbols. The study was completed in two phases. Phase I focused primarily on the nutrition criteria underlying FOP systems. Phase II builds on the results of Phase I while focusing on aspects related to consumer understanding and behavior related to the development of a standardized FOP system. Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols focuses on Phase II of the study. The report addresses the potential benefits of a single, standardized front-label food guidance system regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, assesses which icons are most effective with consumer audiences, and considers the systems/icons that best promote health and how to maximize their use.