The Hungry Gene: The Inside Story of the Obesity Industry

by Ellen Ruppel Shell

Book Overview

In a rare blend of erudition and entertainment, acclaimed science journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell reveals the secret history and subtle politics behind the explosion of obesity. Shell traces the epidemic's inception in the Ice Age, its rise during the Industrial Revolution, and its growth through the early days of medicine and into modernity. She takes readers to the front lines of the struggle to come to grips with this baffling plague -- from a children's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802140335
• ISBN13: 9780802140333
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Super-sizing the proles

Science journalist Ellen Shell notes near the end of this fascinating study about being fat and how we got that way that "Twenty-seven percent of Americans are already obese." She predicts that, unless something is done, "virtually all Americans will be overweight by 2030, and half will be obese." (p. 230)Why? Lack of will-power? Lack of exercise? Our genetic constitution? Ignorance? Indoctrination through advertising by the fast and junk food industries? Answer: all of the above except lack of will-power. When it comes to eating, will-power really has nothing to do with it. Food is a "drug" we can't quit cold turkey. Abstinence is impossible. We must eat, and so the temptation to overeat and/or eat the wrong foods will always be with us. Not only that but we are constantly being bombarded with messages from the purveyors of food to eat this, eat that, eat more, more and more. Super-sizing the proles is a massively huge business.So what to do? Are we looking at a future in which most of us are round mounds of huffing and puffing blubber subject to diabetes and an early death? Shell is hopeful. She believes that if we can somehow regulate the fast food industry in a manner similar to way we are regulating the tobacco industry (see the final chapter), if we educate the public, and turn down the constant din of fast and junk food advertizing, and keep sodas and junk food out of our schools while increasing exercise programs especially for school children, there is hope. However, as Shell illustrates graphically by the story she tells on herself to end Chapter Ten, it is more likely that instead of exercising, we will get into the car, "rev the engine, and steer toward dinner."Regardless of how daunting the public health task of reducing obesity is, Shell makes it a fascinating read. She writes about the morbidly obese and their struggles with stomach stapling and gastric banding; about cultures lured away from their native diets by Spam, pizza and sugared sodas so that virtually everyone from child to adult is fat and many are diabetic (e.g., the Kosraen islanders of the South Pacific); about "Natural Born Freaks" (Chapter Three) children born with a genetic defect that makes them constantly hungry no matter how much or how often they eat; about being hungry during wartime or during food-deprivation experiments in which the hungry can think and talk of nothing but food and more food; and especially about "Big Food" which views critics as "food cops...intent on using junk science to build a socialist nanny state" (p. 230)As I read the book and followed Shell's research I could see her learning the melancholy lesson that "Obesity represents a triumph of instinct over reason" (p. 221). I could sense her early optimism giving way to a realization that "The labyrinth of genes, peptides, and hormones regulating food intake is dense and byzantine, extremely difficult to fool or to manipulate." (p. 147) This is a lesson that Shell presen

Science, Politics, Suspense

I heard the author speaking on public radio--she was fascinating (I sat in my car listening.) The book is fascinating, too, there is so much in there--the history of dieting and obesity surgery, the race to clone the first obesity gene, the politics of the food and drug industry, even a travelogue of sorts when the author travels to Micronesia, where almost overnight more than three quarters of the adults became obese. There is a chapter on something called prenatal programming that talks about how life in the womb can effect long term health--that was totally new to me (and I work in a medical field.) I read a lot of books on science and health, usually just for the information, but this one is different--the author is a wonderful writer (I'll admit to having read other things she's written, in the Atlantic Monthly and Discover) so the book just flies by. And I learned so much. Excellent read, great information...this one has got it all. I don't usually review books, but this topic is so important I thought I'd let people know...

Skillfully meets a pressing need for real information

This book a a truly superb work of science journalism. It tells a complex story of diverse research threads with sometimes contradictory conclusions, and it tells it incredibly well. By the time you finish this book, you will have a much better idea how to realistically interpret for yourself the claims for the latest diet or latest exercise machine or weight loss pill or program. You will have a much better idea what is "in your genes" and what is not, what you can attribute to "slow metabolism" and what you can't. In bringing together all of this diverse research and telling its story so well, this book is a landmark in explaining what sorts of things we can control, and where we are spinning our wheels.Not only is the story of obesity research interesting and relevant to all of us, but it is extremely difficult to get the whole picture. Each article and each news story tends to cover what is novel or most fascinating about research, and the solution the author is promoting, and usually ignores the background and the consensus already formed. The Hungry Gene covers all of the central lines of research: the modification of behavior, the influence of genes, the way the body regulates its own weight, the role of food industries and marketing, and makes each set of findings clear. Equally important, the author makes it clear what we still don't know about human weight control. There simply isn't any non-technical source to find out what is known about obesity, and the technical sources don't tell the story nearly so well, and they tend to be speciallized to a particular field. The Hungry Gene brings it all together coherently.An important and highly relevant education-in-a-book on a deeply interesting topic. Hard to beat a bargain like that. It's rare to find a book that meets such a pressing need for scientific information in such a skillful way.

Amazing

I rarely read non-fiction, let alone science books, but I ordered this one because I've been wondering about the obesity epidemic for some time--it seems that every other person has a serious weight problem these days, and I wondered why. I was drawn into The Hungry Gene from the first chapter--and literally could not put it down. It's fascinating--the chapters on obesity surgery and fat in Kosrae, Micronesia blew me away--they were so well written, more like a novel than like non-ficiton. But the book is also frightening--especially the chapters on the drug industry and food marketing to kids. I couldn't believe the tactics food makers use to draw children into eating stuff they probably shouldn't, and I also couldn't believe how they use kids as salesman, to get their parents to do their will. The book explains the science behind the obesity epidemic in a way that anyone can understand, and it crushes the myth that people are fat because they lack will power or have some sort of character disorder. It's the first book I've read that really puts weight into perspective--explains the big picture, and offers some realistic solutions that don't involve buying some new product or diet drug, or going on some hokey diet. As someone who has fought a losing battle with weight all his life, I can tell you this really opened my eyes. HIGHLY recommended.

The best book on fat ever written

Ellen Ruppel Shell's prose is so beguiling I would willingly read her on any subject. Here her subject is fat, and she pursues it relentlessly, truthfully, compassionately and always compellingly---from the patients wheeled into gastric bypas surgery on extra-large "Big Boy" hospital beds, to an island in Micronesia where everyone is obese and diabetic, to researchers who are patiently unraveling the genetics of obesity. Unquestionably, this is THE book about fat and the search for a cure, and Shell has a rare talent for explaining the cutting edge of research lucidly and beautifully, without ever losing the lay reader. Along the way, she dispells myths, deflates fads, and demystifies confusion, so what we get--finally--is the straight story. No mean feat--and the book is a page-turner, too!