Diet Nation: Exposing the Obesity Crusade [Hardcover]

I will tell you how to solve the obesity crisis - eat less!

Diet Nation is an important contribution to our understanding,
cutting through the flabby debate that has taken place so far.

Does the obesity epidemic require radical countermeasures? Contrary to the obesity crusaders' belief, "Diet Nation" argues that we cannot overcome the obesity problem through legislation. The crusaders' solutions are blunt, heavy-handed and coercive policy instruments that punish both the producers and the consumers of foods and beverages - the obese, the fat, the slim and the thin - in the unscientific and unethical quest for the poisoned chalice of an obesity-free society. There is a significant cost to the current course of treatment for an illusory disease. But the cost is not merely monetary. The greatest cost will consist in the sacrifice of so many of our hard-won economic and political liberties on the altar of a misguided, unwinnable crusade.

PATRICK BASHAM, a political scientist, is Director of the Democracy Institute. Formerly a Senior Fellow in the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute and the Director of the Fraser Institute's Social Affairs Center, he serves as a political analyst for both media and private organisations. GIO BATTA GORI, the founding director of the Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer Program of the US National Cancer Institute, was also the founding editor of the journal Nutrition and Cancer, and was a mover in the 1976 Congressional hearings resulting in the first dietary guidelines for Americans. JOHN LUIK is a leading public policy analyst with expertise in the regulation of the food and beverage industry. Educated as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he writes regularly for newspapers and magazines on food and health issues.