The Obesity Paradox

Carl J. Lavie

Why I looked at this book

We get lots of advice on how to stay healthy. 5 a day of fruit and veg - or maybe 7. The trouble is that unhealthy traits tend to be interlinked - for instance if you eat lots of fatty food you get obese. So it seemed to me that maybe it was just being obese that was unhealthy, and that if weight is kept under control then any other problems will be minor in comparison. But then I heard about studies that being in the overweight zone may prolong your life in some circumstances, and more recently that it isn't obesity that's the problem, but rather lack of exercise. I'm hoping that this book will help sort out some of these issues.

First impressions

At the start Lavie sets the stage for the rest of the book by looking at the current negative view of fat. Certainly the increasing weight of the typical citizens of the US is something to worry about, but is a bit of fat really as bad as we think. I'm looking forward to finding out in the rest of the book, which looks like it will deal with some of my questions about the issue of how to stay healthy.