Professional chef turned blogger Anthony Warner examines the complex problem of obesity in modern society. Obesity rates have been rising throughout the world, and especially in Great Britain and the United States. Warner looks at the problem, addresses several plausible theories to explain obesity, and discusses potential solutions.

Warner has an undergraduate degree in science, and the bibliographic notes cite research journals rather than popular literature. Warner also interviewed experts such as nutritionists and endocrinologists. Warner engagingly addresses a non-specialist audience. Readers looking for a “magic bullet” to solve the problem of obesity won’t find it here. On the other hand, readers who want a better understanding of the complexity of the problem will find this book a good place to start.

This review is based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program. ( )

The Truth About Fat (2018) by Anthony Warner. Being fat is complicated. It is easier to get fat than it is to lose fat. Diets in and of themselves may help in the short term but they tend to fail over time because they are so difficult to maintain. Exercise in and of itself can cause you to eat more, gain weight and fail. A course of sensible eating coupled with an exercise program the increases your body’s ability to use incoming calories and carbs while also taking small amounts from your body’s reserve can produce results. Overall, if you are fat, you are fat and there isn’t much you can do about it unless you have the will power to stick to a healthy regimen.
The Angry Chef is back again railing forth in this well researched, well written book. He is taking on the fast food industry, the “carbs are evil” folks, and the sugar is the root of all evil, people.
What is the best way to lose those miserable pounds you are carrying around? The best, sure-fire method for getting rid go that poundage is this: Do not put them on in the first place.
Too late you say. Well grab a bag of chips and join me on the couch along with the majority of the world. Just keep in mind one thing. You may not be able to do too much about how much you weigh at this moment because of your own lack of will power, but you influence kids around you and perhaps you can stop them from getting the weight on.
Mr. Warner has provided another book about food that delves inside the truth and the industrial explanations on why so much of the world is fat. Look into it. ( )

I have been wading through this for the past month. I found it difficult and only half way through did I realize it may be because the author is British. I believe many of the references in the scenarios were not in synch with the American culture. In the last "what to do" section, there was no mention of solutions such as Weight Watchers. And in general, there were a lot of "no conclusions" or "it could be any of these." ( )

What a refreshing read! Too often, books that claim to give readers the "real truth" about fatness tend to give over-simplified lop-sided perspectives on obesity, ranging all the way from unapologetic fat-shaming to celebration of brazen hedonism. The real truth is there, living large, within those extremes. Warner does an excellent job of presenting a balanced overview in a sensitive and caring way. I especially appreciate his handling of the topic of bullying and body-size stigma. He says "We must show concern for people's health, not their appearance" (p.92). Indeed. He also says, "that will require us to accept that some people are always going to be fat" (p.92). It may well be a very long time (if ever!) before the medical establishment and greater society embrace the belief that personal wellness and obesity are NOT mutually exclusive!
Overall, the book appears to be well-researched and is well-referenced. Chapter 8: "Is it Because of Our Genes?" discusses the roles of famine, selective mating and epigenetics in a clear, concise way that contributes to our understanding of hereditary influences on body fat. However, I believe that the rich discussion in Chapter 8 could have been greatly enhanced by including more details on genetic obesity syndromes, such as Prader-Willi Syndrome and Fragile X syndrome. (For more information on these disorders, please see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18230893). ( )

Warner writes excellently when he’s summarizing the status of and debates within the scientific study of obesity and makes a number of good points—that fat-shaming probably does very little to help people lose weight; that BMI cut-offs are arbitrarily chosen for ease of use and of questionable utility for characterizing many people’s weights, that healthfulness is a worthier goal than shaming people for not conforming to a single idealized body type most humans can't achieve—but then belabors them for paragraphs. He devotes far too much page space to repetitive polemics on points that this book's readership most likely agrees with already.

Warner correctly points out that no one thing--sleeping more, moving more, eating less, eating differently, altering the microbiome, altering genetics, changing portion size or number of sugary drinks consumed, regulating the sale of unhealthy foods, taxing the sale of unhealthy foods, providing overweight individuals or obesity-prone communities with information on dieting and exercising, or healthier food options--will lead to easy, large scale, and sustainable weight loss. But--spoiler alert!--his solution to fighting obesity is to: conduct surveys and focus groups, provide better housing or exercise facilities, or education, or cooking classes, or healthier fast food options, or give tax incentives to businesses for selling healthier foods...in other words, use the same behaviors and policies he dismissed in the first 328 pages, only "working closely with local residents," which is apparently the one thing that everyone's been missing thus far.

This book isn't bad by any means, and Warner is probably spot on in stating that there's no "one" way to cure obesity. But in his eagerness to make that last point, he has a tendency to throw the baby out with the bath water.