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A review by bookph1le
Secrets From the Food Lab by Traci Mann
5.0
If you're recovering from chronic dieting, as I am, or if you're still riding the dieting roller coaster, this book will offer you so much sanity. Mann does an excellent job of breaking down a variety of myths about diet and exercise, using plenty of science to back it up--not just her own, but that of other researchers too.
I read up on nutritional and exercise science enough to not have been surprised by everything she says here, but I imagine that to many people a lot of the book will be very surprising. To take the best and most obvious example: Mann systematically dissects and debunks the idea that obesity in and of itself is a serious health issue. Plenty of people will scoff at that. After all, we've been conditioned to think obesity is an epidemic on par with the black plague or something, thanks to news media, politicians, and companies with a cynical interest in keeping us convinced that we must diet in order to have any hope of a healthy, meaningful life. However, careful study of the science proves that this isn't the case, and there are profound implications is destroying the belief that fat equals unhealthy and thin equals healthy.
What also appeals to me about this book is that Mann is advocating for doing away with dieting permanently. I've done Weight Watchers multiple times. I've had success with it but then ended up putting all the weight back on and more. Given that society tends to send overweight people the message that being overweight is their fault, it's been hard not to internalize that as a lack of willpower or some fundamental flaw on my part. Over the years, I've worked hard to change my dietary and exercise habits, and I've finally realized that quitting dieting forever is the best thing I've ever done for myself. I'm working to do what Mann suggests and have learned to accept that my set weight is where I belong, as well as learning to be okay with my body. And it's worked. I'm not as thin as I have been at other times in the past, but I'm healthier than I've probably ever been, I certainly eat better than I did before (even while on WW, where I'd forgo fruits and veggies in favor of 100-calorie packs), and I exercise much more regularly.
If you're interested in nutritional science, you will enjoy Mann's descriptions of the various studies she and others have done. Her style is conversational, and while she offers up plenty of evidence to support her assertions, you don't feel like you're reading a grad school textbook. She does an excellent job of breaking things down in layman's terms and making her subject interesting. I like to read science books, so I'm okay with a higher level of technical detail than she offers here, but the strength of her approach is that she makes it more accessible to a broader audience.
While the science portions of the book are interesting, many readers will probably get those most out of the final sections of the book, in which Mann offers a lot of reasonable strategies. She uses science to back these up too, of course, but they offer readers guidelines for how they can go about changing their behaviors. Even better, I didn't think any of them were unrealistic, and since I've already adopted a few of them, I can say that they're easy to adopt and that they do work. Others, such as her suggestions for being alone with veggies and making healthy foods more visible and easy to access, are suggestions I intend to try. Plus, implementing these suggestions isn't just good for the reader, it's good for the readers' loved ones. I've twisted myself in knots trying to figure out how to get my kids to eat more fruits and veggies, and by doing things like putting fruit out in bowls on the counter or serving a veggie course before the rest of dinner, the strategies I'm using to try to get myself to eat better will also help my kids develop healthier habits, something that's extremely important to me.
I can't say enough good things about this book. I learned some new information from it, and I really appreciated Mann's advocating for a saner, healthier outlook on diet and exercise. It seems contradictory, but it seems to me that the national obsession we have with obesity in the U.S. is actually creating worse outcomes. If more people were to try the things Mann is suggesting, I think Americans overall would be healthier, both mentally and physically.
I read up on nutritional and exercise science enough to not have been surprised by everything she says here, but I imagine that to many people a lot of the book will be very surprising. To take the best and most obvious example: Mann systematically dissects and debunks the idea that obesity in and of itself is a serious health issue. Plenty of people will scoff at that. After all, we've been conditioned to think obesity is an epidemic on par with the black plague or something, thanks to news media, politicians, and companies with a cynical interest in keeping us convinced that we must diet in order to have any hope of a healthy, meaningful life. However, careful study of the science proves that this isn't the case, and there are profound implications is destroying the belief that fat equals unhealthy and thin equals healthy.
What also appeals to me about this book is that Mann is advocating for doing away with dieting permanently. I've done Weight Watchers multiple times. I've had success with it but then ended up putting all the weight back on and more. Given that society tends to send overweight people the message that being overweight is their fault, it's been hard not to internalize that as a lack of willpower or some fundamental flaw on my part. Over the years, I've worked hard to change my dietary and exercise habits, and I've finally realized that quitting dieting forever is the best thing I've ever done for myself. I'm working to do what Mann suggests and have learned to accept that my set weight is where I belong, as well as learning to be okay with my body. And it's worked. I'm not as thin as I have been at other times in the past, but I'm healthier than I've probably ever been, I certainly eat better than I did before (even while on WW, where I'd forgo fruits and veggies in favor of 100-calorie packs), and I exercise much more regularly.
If you're interested in nutritional science, you will enjoy Mann's descriptions of the various studies she and others have done. Her style is conversational, and while she offers up plenty of evidence to support her assertions, you don't feel like you're reading a grad school textbook. She does an excellent job of breaking things down in layman's terms and making her subject interesting. I like to read science books, so I'm okay with a higher level of technical detail than she offers here, but the strength of her approach is that she makes it more accessible to a broader audience.
While the science portions of the book are interesting, many readers will probably get those most out of the final sections of the book, in which Mann offers a lot of reasonable strategies. She uses science to back these up too, of course, but they offer readers guidelines for how they can go about changing their behaviors. Even better, I didn't think any of them were unrealistic, and since I've already adopted a few of them, I can say that they're easy to adopt and that they do work. Others, such as her suggestions for being alone with veggies and making healthy foods more visible and easy to access, are suggestions I intend to try. Plus, implementing these suggestions isn't just good for the reader, it's good for the readers' loved ones. I've twisted myself in knots trying to figure out how to get my kids to eat more fruits and veggies, and by doing things like putting fruit out in bowls on the counter or serving a veggie course before the rest of dinner, the strategies I'm using to try to get myself to eat better will also help my kids develop healthier habits, something that's extremely important to me.
I can't say enough good things about this book. I learned some new information from it, and I really appreciated Mann's advocating for a saner, healthier outlook on diet and exercise. It seems contradictory, but it seems to me that the national obsession we have with obesity in the U.S. is actually creating worse outcomes. If more people were to try the things Mann is suggesting, I think Americans overall would be healthier, both mentally and physically.