The World Is Fat: The Fads, Trends, Policies, and Products That Are Fatteningthe Human Race

by Barry Popkin

Overview

A compelling look at the global trends that have led to today's obesity crisis

The planet's 1.6 billion overweight people by far outnumber the 700 million who are undernourished. This figure would have seemed ludicrous just fifty years ago. As a result of unprecedented trends in technology, globalization, government policy, and the food industry that are changing how we eat, drink, and move, we now live in a world populated by overweight people with debilitating health problems.

In this fascinating look at the striking changes in both our lifestyles and food system since World War II, Barry Popkin shows how present options for eating and drinking- especially when combined with a dramatic reduction in physical activity-are clashing with millions of years of evolution to fatten the human race. Popkin argues that widespread obesity-and the chronic health problems that contribute to the bulk of deaths in the world-is less a result of poor dietary choices than about a hi-tech, interconnected world in which governments and multinational corporations have extraordinary power to shape our everyday lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440661754
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/26/2008
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	340 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Barry Popkin is the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and director of the UNC Interdisciplinary Obesity Center. His U.S. research program focuses on understanding dietary and physical activity behaviors, the factors that cause them to change over time, and their health consequences. His global work includes a series of long-term studies in China, Russia, the Philippines, Brazil, and several other countries. Popkin’s research has been featured in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Economist, Time, and Scientific American.

Table of Contents

The World is FatIntroduction

1. A Brief History of the Modern Diet
2. We Are What We Drink
3. On Movement
4. The World Is Flat—and Fat
5. The Big Problems of a Fat World
6. Nothing to See Here: The Food Industry's Role in Causing and Solving the Problem
7. What Can We Do?

Acknowledgments
Sources and References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs

"The global obesity epidemic affects all of us - families, communities, and nations around the world. It's a weighty subject in every way, with dire consequences for well being, life expectancy, and economic productivity in the years ahead unless seriously confronted. The World is Fat is compelling reading on this complex and growing societal threat. Dr. Barry Popkin is one of the world's most distinguished experts on obesity, the global food system, and nutrition, with extensive first-hand knowledge of the trends in the U.S., Europe, India, China, and beyond. His writing is remarkably clear and concise, free of jargon, and full of wisdom, balance, and good judgment. His call to action and practical suggestions to individuals, communities, and political leaders, will be read with enormous interest and benefit around the world."--(Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, author of The End of Poverty and Common Wealth)

Editorial Reviews

Popkin, a distinguished nutritionist with more than 30 years' experience in international research, offers a concise, lucid overview of how the human diet has gone awry in the last half-century.
—The Washington Post

Fuchsia Dunlop

Popkin, a renowned obesity and nutrition expert, investigates what the World Health Organization has defined as a global obesity epidemic, identifying familiar culprits (nutrient-poor, sugar-rich foods; larger serving sizes and less exercise)-but introduces fresh research to demonstrate how our drinking habits have contributed to the problem. The author follows the expanding waistlines of four families in the United States, Mexico and India to argue that obesity is less a result of "gluttony and sloth" than a confluence of factors rooted in a fundamental conflict between human biology and modern society, where more calories are consumed than expended, and governments and multinational corporations shape everyday lives (a detailed section traces the growth of modern food and beverage conglomerates). Unfortunately, the book remains a disjointed portrayal of this thesis: Popkin never fully explores the impact of energy drinks and sodas and interrupts his observations of the four families to wax nostalgic (and unscientific) on his youthful dietary and exercise habits in rural Wisconsin. The salience and urgency of the obesity epidemic is incontrovertible, however, and Popkin's is a readable and ambitious introduction. (Jan.)

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