Losing It: America's Obession With Weight Loss

Laura Fraser

"Losing It" was written about ten years ago. And it was kind of ahead of it's time because it was the first book that really put forward the idea that you can be fit and fat. Essentially, it's a critique of the diet culture.

And what I did is I went back about 100 years and looked at how the diet culture developed in this country and the different sort of, methods of dieting were developed and why. And then I looked at the present day diet industry. The commercial diet centers, I went sort of undercover to a lot of them, Jennie Craig, Weight Watchers, etc, etc. It's kind of an amazing business. It's the only one where if the business doesn't succeed they blame the consumer.

So, the book is just sort of a soup-to-nuts study of our obsession with weight and the industry that feeds on it. I have thought about updating "Losing It" but haven't found a publisher who wants to do that. Mainly because it's a book that says, you really don't have to lose weight which doesn't sell very well.

If I had put in that magic chapter at the end that says here's how you lose weight and keep it off by eating you know pumpkin pie and amphetamines, then it would have sold really well, and you know a million copies would still be in print. But I took a more honest approach which is that for most people weight loss is very slow if at all. It involves long-term lifestyle changes and not everyone is going to be thin.

Since I wrote "Losing It," I think that the understanding of obesity in this country has become a little bit more sophisticated than it used to be. I would recommend "Losing It" for anyone who has been caught in a cycle of losing weight, gaining it, feeling bad about themselves and wants some perspective. I'd give "Losing It" four stars."

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