Female Fertility and the Body Fat Connection

by Rose E. Frisch

Book Overview

Are girls entering puberty earlier than they used to? This question, which has been debated recently by doctors and scientists in the pages of Time magazine and the New York Times , proves that there is still a great deal to learn about women's reproductive health. Female Fertility and the Body-Fat Connection is the record of one scientist's groundbreaking and decades-long work on the connections among fertility, body fat, and reproductive health in women. Rose E. Frisch explains here how, in women, a certain amount of body fat is crucial to the reproductive system and sexual maturation. Women who are too lean are infertile and cannot conceive children; young girls who are too thin have a delayed onset of their first period. Female Fertility and the Body-Fat Connection illuminates how and why a "critical fitness" level underlies a woman's reproductive health. In the process Frisch gives readers a comprehensive view of the research done to date on the relationship between body composition and fertility and also describes her own journey as a woman scientist working to advance her critical-fitness hypothesis both to the general public and the scientific community. Frisch answers the questions every woman has about the desirable weight for health and fertility and even includes tables to help women find their own best weight. She also demonstrates how important diet and exercise are for the long-term reproductive health of women, and shows what factors influence the onset of puberty in girls. Each milestone of the reproductive life span is affected by food intake and energy output, the factors affecting the storage of fat. Female Fertility and the Body-Fat Connection is a cornerstone to understanding the health of girls and women.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226265455
• ISBN13: 9780226265452
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Great information, tedious to read

This book lays out a fascinating analysis of the causal relationship between fatness and fertility, and it is undoubtedly a testament to the enduring power of the author's work that so many of the ideas in this book seem quite intuitive to me--I've grown up with these ideas generally accepted. The empirical analysis in the book is first-rate, and I found the population studies illuminating. My complaint, though, is the the incessant name-dropping and asides about where she was when data was found or a conclusion reached are almost unendurably tedious. I appreciate that she has a great deal of respect for her collaborators, and I certainly appreciate how difficult it must have been for a woman to propose a totally new hypothesis to the male-dominated medical community of the early 1970s, but that really belongs in her autobiography, not in a piece of analysis. The inclusion of these personal asides detracts from the otherwise dispassionate, analytical tone and distracts from her very interesting and really revolutionary ideas. I am, perhaps, too fussy as this is really my only complaint about the book. It is otherwise an elegant synopsis of 30 years of research and a helpful resource for those trying to conceive or generally interested in conception. But enough with the names and CVs.

Clearly, it's NOT true that you can never be too thin!

This fascinating, intelligent book makes for quick reading and lots of thinking. I wish I'd discovered Rose Frisch a long time ago, as she explains some events of puberty that, had I understood them at the time, would have alarmed me far less. This was an encouraging, lively, and absorbing book. Hopefully it will help women struggling with infertilty and body image to get to the bottom of at least one area of potential misunderstanding. I've recommended this book to several friends and will continue to get the word out.

Wonderful Book

This is a wonderful informative book. It's an invaluable work for anyone who's looking to understand female fertility, and a great read too.