Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. This item is unavailable.Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

In this eye-opening report, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our society's obsession with dieting is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals. Kolata's account of four determined dieters in a study comparing the Atkins diet to a low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of the place of diets in American society. Brimming with anecdote, scientific data, and common sense, Rethinking Thin offers a challenge to the conventional wisdom about diets and weight loss.

Gina Kolata is a science reporter for The New York Times and the author of Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It, Clone: The Road to Dolly, and Sex in America. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.