Analysis Of Fat Land By Greg Cristler

“Fat Land”, a book by Greg Cristler, a health journalist who was formerly considered overweight, explains how America became the fattest people in the world. Before writing this book, Cristler was told that he needed to lose forty pounds and so to do so he enlisted a competent doctor, the prescription weight-loss medication Meridia, jogs in a congenial neighborhood park, a wife who cooked him healthy food, and access to plenty of information. Cristler is quick to add that those weren’t the only factors that led to his weight loss, but money and time were a big part of it. Cristler lost the weight, but he states “the more I contemplated my success, the more I came to see it not as a triumph of the will, but as a triumph of my economic and social

Cristler exposes the Los Angeles school district, which had experienced budget cuts and ended up serving things like pizza, tacos, and burritos for lunch to save the school money and time. These foods may have been saving the school money, but as far as caloric intake they were increasing greatly. Cristler gives many other insightful facts about the growth of calorie consumption over time. He states, “Just as the presence of supersized portions had stimulated Americans to eat more at mealtime, the sheer presence of a large variety of the overall habits of the American eater”. This comment pretty much sums up all the information and facts that Cristler gives about America’s epidemic weight gain. In chapter four, Cristler covers how schools started to be-little education and goes on to explain how the decrease in physical education has also contributed to obesity rates, especially in children. In the 1980s schools started to develop the post-industrial idea that there were more important tasks for schools to perform other than P.E., because America had now fallen behind Japan in productivity and job creation. Cristler mentions that what fitness opportunities remained for children grew increasingly class-based. Fitness became more individually focused and became based on clubs and memberships. I think these are good points that Cristler makes and they

I find this a little contradicting because for the majority of the book, Cristler is blaming things such as the media, economic status, and race (all things that are out of an individual’s control) for the reasons of our nations obesity rates and unhealthy lifestyles. I do agree with Cristler through in the idea that all the factors he mentions have an effect on obesity in our nation as a whole. I think every factor contributes to the overall increase of weight gain and obesity rates in our society and Cristler does an excellent job of informing his readers in a way that makes us really question what kind of things our society is promoting and influencing us with on a daily