[lbo-talk] 300 Pounds of Joy

[Jim Straub]

Interesting.  Y'know, when I was on my spanish influenza kick I read
her book about the great flu.  It's riddled with ludicrous errors.
It's a pretty big deal to write about the great influenza and get the
body count of it wrong by like 300% because you don't bother to learn
about the countries in the global south which had the bulk of deaths
from it.  Its like writing about the holocaust and giving it a death
toll of 1 mill because you only count roma, queers and leftists and
not jews, or whatever.  I had a negative view of kolata after that.
But the diet science book sounds neat.


>
> According to Gina Kolata's latest book -- Rethinking Thin: The New
> Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting -- Not
> even exercise and reduced calories will help in the long run.  The
> body will force you to readjust to the new weight by slowing down your
> metabolism until you gain back the weight.  Essentially her argument
> is that practically _all_ scientific studies show that people have a
> rate range of about 20 pounds and that range cannot be changed by
> dieting and exercise.  She is not saying that this range is genetic --
> though that is part of it --- but apparently factors like if your
> mother smoked while she was pregnant and whether your mother was
> restricted in her calorie intake while you were pregnant are huge
> factors in obesity.