William Davis's Blog: Dr. Davis Infinite Health Blog, page 91

New Undoctored book hits bookstores today

My new book, Undoctored: Why Health Care Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor, hits bookstores today, May 9th, 2017. I will be hosting a Facebook LIVE event today, also, at 5 pm Eastern/4 pm Central/3 pm Mountain/2 pm Pacific.

I want Undoctored to spark a revolution, a revolt against the healthcare system and its predatory ways. Undoctored sums up the lessons learned from the six years of the worldwide Wheat Belly experience that witnessed hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people achieve slenderness and health. Undoctored expands the discussion to show readers how even greater levels of health can be achieved when YOU take control away from doctors, drugs, hospitals, and the healthcare industry and apply all the new tools available to us.

Among the important additions/changes introduced in Undoctored:

I show why the doctor and the healthcare industry are not on your side–never were, never will be. There is plenty of lip service about “healing” and “caring,” but that’s just marketing. The goals of healthcare have little to do with health but everything to do with growing revenues. I know because I was on the inside for 25 years and was privy to locker room and board room conversations.
I show how to distinguish good health information from bad. Much of the “research” to back up statin drugs for cholesterol, for instance, is little more than thinly-veiled marketing and is therefore as reliable as a TV commercial for breakfast cereal.
I discuss how we collaborate to obtain the information advantages of crowd wisdom. Part of the Undoctored project is a data collection initiative in which we will collect the health data of thousands of people to chronicle health improvements over time. This allows you to follow your own progress, compare it to other people, and allows us to show the collective results to government agencies, health insurers, or any organization interested in seeing what health looks like on a large scale.
I discuss why the Undoctored Wild, Naked, and Unwashed program serves the intrinsic needs of the human body and thereby yields outsize benefits of the sort allow hundreds of health conditions to reverse.
I discuss why Undoctored is not a “diagnose your own disease” program, nor an encylopedia of health treatments. Instead, we reverse the conditions that allow diseases to develop in the first place, then watch as the majority reverse or disappear.
I discuss how to incorporate the many new health measuring devices and smartphone apps into your day to further empower your health efforts.
I provide Undoctored Protocols that add a few more steps to undo conditions such as osteoporosis/osteopenia, high cholesterol, and calcium oxalate kidney stones, conditions that respond to the basic program but require some additional natural efforts.
I will announce the upcoming launch of several online Undoctored projects such as Undoctored Connect, a social site to discuss Undoctored concepts; Undoctored Inner Circle, a membership site with unique services including a Virtual Meetup that allows people to meet in virtual “rooms” to discuss their program with me and other people and view video webinars; and several Undoctored Learning Courses to amplify the Undoctored experience, including Undoctored U that provides certification to healthcare practitioners.

All in all, the Undoctored book and projects are an ambitious effort to undo all the harm that healthcare has inflicted while never actually providing health. The code on magnificent health has been cracked and Undoctored gives it to you, plain and simple.

The Undoctored book is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, and all major booksellers. I shall be announcing the release of Undoctored online programs in coming days and weeks.

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Sign the petition to change the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans

The Nutritional Coalition, a non-partisan advocacy group, has posted a petition to change the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Although none of us on the Wheat Belly lifestyle follow anything that the Guidelines advocate, they still heavily influence such things as the U.S. School Lunch Policy and how nutrition is taught in schools.

The Guidelines have been an unmitigated disaster. While there are other factors contributing to the epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and other health conditions, such as the predatory practices of Big Food that push chips, candy, and sodas (with the blessing of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, by the way, partly because of the absurd Guidelines), the Guidelines are responsible for many dietary fictions, such as “cut your fat and cholesterol,” “eat more healthy whole grains,” and “eat less and move more” that are actually harmful, or at least ineffective, fictions repeated by media, taught by schoolteachers, believed by the nutritionally naive public.

Among the changes suggested by the petition:

Undertake a communications campaign to let Americans know that the low-fat diet is no longer officially recommended
Offer low-carbohydrate diets as a viable option for fighting chronic disease
Stop telling Americans to do aerobic exercise for weight loss
Stop recommending vegetable oils for health
Don’t issue guidelines based on weak, observational data

As far as the petition goes, it does not advocate grain elimination, the cornerstone of the Wheat Belly lifestyle. So please do not confuse this petition with what is advocated in the Wheat Belly lifestyle. But this petition, if successful, pushes the Guidelines several big steps in the right direction. Who knows, maybe grain elimination will gain ground as an item worthy of mention in the next version of the Guidelines as more and more people come to realize what magnificent changes in health and weight occur with this strategy?

While I personally regard the Dietary Guidelines as irrelevant to my life, they are harmful to many people who do not know any better, especially children. Changing this destructive status quo would therefore be a big positive. So please join in and sign the petition to bring this to the attention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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Undoctored: The code on health has been cracked

Here’s another excerpt from my new book, Undoctored: Why the Health Care System Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor. Undoctored seeks to set you free from the predatory practices of the healthcare industry by helping you achieve ideal health, weight, and day-to-day functioning.

Undoctored: The code on health has been cracked

Many modern doctors hold themselves up as all-knowing, capable of managing every aspect of health, from delivery to death, from vaccination to senility. I know because I was guilty of this. The “I’m-the-doctor, you’re-the- patient relationship” has been frozen in time since the days of Hippocrates. Despite the high-tech image, old-fashioned methods are still used to maintain paternalistic authority.

All of it seems positively fossilized in an age of immediate information access, on-demand videos, drone deliveries, and the democratization of discussion via social media. The information tide has shifted. Public ignorance in health may have been the rule in 1950, but rapid dissemination of information in our age has usurped this lopsided relationship, making the paternalistic doctor-patient relationship of the past as relevant as trepanation (drilling holes in the skull—yes, a real practice) to treat migraines.

The truth is: You have access to the same information as your doctor. And it doesn’t involve leafing through dozens of thick volumes of the Index Medicus and then having to retrieve a study from dusty stacks of medical journals, like I did during my medical training.

So what if we combined the newly found informational freedom provided by Internet search capabilities with the human feedback tool of social media and the rise in direct-to-consumer testing that circumvents the doctor, then threw in a little benign guidance from sources that do not seek to profit from providing it? You might just be on your way to wielding considerable authority over your own health.

Unquestionably, there are situations in which doctoring and the healthcare system are needed. If you are bleeding, injured, or struggling to breathe with pneumonia, some old-fashioned suturing, bone setting, or antibiotics can still do the trick. Nobody around here is going to try to replace their own hip joint or treat a urinary tract infection with salves and tonics.

But it’s these less-than-interesting health issues for your doctor that are wonderfully and safely reduced, reversed, and—dare I say it—cured by a handful of simple strategies that you can implement on your own. You’ll be spared the annoyances and dangers of the healthcare system, and because you are obviously not trying to profit financially, you will remove layers of unnecessary costs. You will also find personal health challenges far more fascinating to deal with since they involve you.

Let’s be absolutely clear: I propose that people can manage their own health safely and responsibly and attain results superior to those achieved through conventional health care—not less than, not on par with, but superior.

You will see that the Undoctored process turns the health equation around 180 degrees by providing an approach that first restores head-to-toe health in unexpected ways, reversing numerous health distortions, many of which you are likely unaware that you had, as well as many overt health conditions. I predict that your Undoctored efforts will dramatically reduce your need for health care while helping you to feel better (and even look better) and sparing you from hundreds of health issues.

So turn on the reading light, get cozy in your chair, grab the remote to switch off the medical drama airing on TV, and prepare to be enlightened and know that your future will be brighter and healthier, all because you decided that you’ve had enough of being a source of profit for the healthcare system while never really receiving health in return and that you are going to take back control over your health and fate, all Undoctored.

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Peach Yogurt Panna Cotta

Here’s another panna cotta recipe but using yogurt to provide some probiotic effect, as well as a rich taste and mouthfeel. Peaches are just coming into season right now, so it’s a great time to start including in recipes.

Choose full-fat yogurt, organic whenever possible, that is unflavored and unsweetened. You could also make your own high-fat yogurt from the Wheat Belly recipe here.

Despite containing peach with around 9 grams net carbs each, the carbs of the one peach are distributed into 4 servings, yielding a net carb content of 10 grams per serving, safely under our limit of 15 grams. Because there is no added sugar, since this panna cotta is sweetened with Virtue Sweetener, no net carbs come from the sweetener.

Makes 4 servings

1/2 cup water

2 3/4 teaspoons gelatin

1 medium peach, pitted and cubed

2 1/2 cups full-fat yogurt, unflavored and unsweetened

1 tablespoon Virtue Sweetener

Pour water into medium bowl, then sprinkle gelatin over top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes.

Add peach, yogurt, sweetener and blend with immersion/stick blender or pour into standard blender; blend until thoroughly mixed.

Divide into 4 containers (e.g., drinking glasses, wine glasses, martini glasses) and refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving.

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Did Big Pharma BUY Big Media?

Healthcare is at the top of the list of societal problems in the U.S.

Healthcare interactions are unsatisfying to most people, costs are out of control and cost every American nearly $10,000 per person per year while bleeding 17.5% of GDP, more than any other nation on earth for a system that ranks low or last  in quality compared to other developed countries. For a problem as big as healthcare, big enough to cripple the entire economy in addition to bankrupting more and more Americans, you would think that media reporting would be filled with debate, criticisms, and in-depth coverage about the problems in healthcare.

But there is something peculiar going on: Despite the enormity of the problems surrounding healthcare, there are virtually no nationally broadcast analyses of the problems in healthcare. Yes, there is debate about how Trump’s new healthcare plan will replace or modify Obamacare–the politics of healthcare. But glaringly absent from Big Media discussions is any substantive talk about the costs of prescription drugs, biologic agents that cost several thousand dollars per month, skyrocketing hospital charges, the impenetrable world of medical billing, out-of-control costs for medical devices, research showing that the more money spent on healthcare the higher the mortality, and other issues.

Watch ABC’s Good Morning America and you will not hear much discussion about the costs of prescription drugs. Watch NBC’s Today Show and you will hear virtually nothing about the outrageous cost of medical devices. Watch 60 Minutes and there will be no in-depth explorations about medical bankruptcy or the mortality costs of greater healthcare. You’d have to go back to 2007 on ABC’s 20/20 show to hear John Stossel criticize healthcare–there has been almost none since.

Imagine the same silence was going on with reporting for acts of terrorism and we find out that the shooting in San Bernardino, California, or the Boston Marathon bombing, or the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting occurred but were not conveyed through Big Media news reports or commentary—that would be a glaring and concerning act of omission, wouldn’t it? Of course, such events were broadcast openly, perhaps even over-reported.

Then why are some of the most heinous activities in modern healthcare not being reported, debated, followed up, when healthcare is among the factors most likely to threaten the health of the American economy, sufficient to cripple personal income, spending ability, all while the health of Americans is in a downward spiral with more obesity, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune conditions, and other chronic disorders?

Consider this: In past, Big Media used to report the excesses and abuses of the healthcare system frequently and openly. Why the change of heart with such an enormous societal problem? Could it be direct-to-consumer drug advertising?

Just about everyone in the U.S. has heard about the drugs Cialis, Eliquis, Humira, and Lyrica, among the most-run TV drug ads, with 80 drug ads being run every hour around the clock. The drug industry now spends an unprecedented $5 billion dollars a year on these ads, and the sum continues to grow every year. When I watch TV morning news, every other commercial is about a drug. If you watch daytime TV, drug ads likewise dominate. Prime time? The same: filled with ads for Tresiba–“Tresiba ready,” Phil Mickelson and Enbrel, Sally Field and Boniva. No other industry dominates commercial air time like the drug industry.

Has the drug industry, in effect, bought the silence of Big Media? If drug ads dominate commercial income for NBC, ABC, CBS, and other major media, do they not criticize the drug industry and avoid antagonizing their biggest customer? Can you conceive of any other reason the media are essentially silent on all the crucial issues in healthcare? If they were not silent, you would have heard about:

Gilead Sciences, maker of Harvoni and Sovaldi for hepatitis C, charges $84,000 to $94,000 for a single vial of 120 capsules, despite costing only $68-136 to manufacture, yielding revenues far beyond that required to recover R&D costs.
Celgene increased the cost of thalidomide for multiple myeloma 32-fold, even though they did not develop the drug nor fund its development.
AstraZeneca markets Lovaza, prescription fish oil, that costs $2880 per year when fish oil of the same, or even superior, quality is available for around $150 per year without a prescription. Doctors, being so miserably uninformed about nutritional supplements, give into the sexy drug sales rep who hawks Lovaza, adding to the societal burden of costs.
“Me-too” drugs, i.e., new drugs that are minor variations of existing drugs, raise drug costs, rather than reduce them. Prevacid, Prilosec, Protonix, AcipHex, Nexium, and Dexilant are drugs to block stomach acid. Despite the number of choices and apparent competition, costs have increased for each agent, not decreased.
Of the 39 new agents approved by the FDA in 2012, 11 were biologics with consumer price tags of over $100,000 per year.

That’s just a sample, of course, of the shenanigans of the drug industry. There are countless more. But I doubt you have heard much about any of them because the news does not report them.

Defenders of drug advertising argue that it is a first amendment right for their industry to run ads anytime, anywhere. Ironically, it appears that, because drug advertising dominates the income of Big Media, they have, in effect, purchased the voice of media and silenced them. The system is broken because it supports deep-pocketed commercial interests like Big Pharma and has lost sight of health. This is one of the reasons I wrote the book, Undoctored: Why Healthcare Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor. The drug industry now controls the content of Big Media, the healthcare industry grows larger and richer, while American health erodes and finances are crippled. Yet real health is achievable easily, inexpensively, and quickly, without drugs, without doctors, without hospitals. Just don’t count on a drug TV ad or your doctor to tell you how. Become undoctored, undrugged, unhospitaled, and don’t count on the news to inform you about health.

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Do you really need that prescription drug?

An excerpt from my new book Undoctored.

This is a story about the games that the pharmaceutical industry plays.

In this case, they are playing a shell game that costs you thousands of dollars.

Take an agent already in the public domain and classified as a nutritional supplement, perform a clinical trial to treat some condition, and then declare that this new agent is a drug. This is how prescription fish oil, Lovaza (called Omacor in Europe), got its start, when the drug company Reliant spotted the opportunity. It’s been known for decades that supplements of omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil reduce the level of triglycerides in the bloodstream, a risk for cardiovascular disease and other conditions. A clinical trial of the “drug” was performed, demonstrating its effectiveness for reducing triglyceride levels, just as over-the-counter fish oil does. The FDA approved Lovaza for treatment of hypertriglyceridemia, or high triglyceride blood levels.

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline purchased the rights from Reliant and has since built the Lovaza franchise into a $1 billion-per-year business. Marketing for Lovaza uses clever wording like, “Lovaza is the only FDA-approved medication made from omega-3 fish oil. It’s purified. It’s concentrated. And you can’t get it at a health food store.” The wording is meant to persuade doctors and the public that Lovaza is somehow different from its low-cost competitors: purer, more concentrated, so powerful you can’t get it on your own. Doctors, being as poorly informed about nutritional supplements as they are, jumped on the prescription form.

Lovaza costs about $60 per capsule per month. Most people take four capsules per day: $240 per month, or $2,880 per year, to obtain 3,360 milligrams of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids per day.

What if I instead went to Costco and bought its high-potency fish oil?

This version is in the same common ethyl ester form as Lovaza. The Costco form of omega-3 fatty acids costs $14.99 for 180 capsules, or $2.50 per capsule per month; each capsule contains 684 milligrams EPA + DHA. I would therefore have to take five capsules per day to obtain the same 3,360 milligrams EPA and DHA per day as with Lovaza. This would cost me 5 x $2.50 = $12.50 per month, or $150 per year to achieve the same effect, or 95 percent less than the cost of the prescription form. High-grade fish oil that is pure (contains essentially no contaminants such as mercury) and has a similar or greater omega-3 fatty acid content than the prescription form is widely available over the counter at a fraction of the price of Lovaza. You can even purchase another form of fish oil, the triglyceride form (as opposed to the ethyl ester form in Lovaza and most other brands), which has been put through additional steps that concentrate the omega-3 fatty acids further and reduce contaminants to even lower levels than the ethyl ester form. The triglyceride form is more potent than prescription fish oil and better absorbed, yet still at a tiny fraction of the price of Lovaza.

Oddly, few physicians advised patients to take fish oil until Lovaza appeared on the market and persuasive sales representatives started dropping off samples with smiles. While doctors could have easily advised patients to supplement over-the-counter fish oil before the “drug” form came on the market, they instead opted to prescribe Lovaza, reflecting the effectiveness of marketing hocus-pocus and adding several thousand dollars of cost per person under the guise of FDA approval. Of course, the $1 billion in Lovaza sales ends up in the pockets of the drug company, while we all bear the burden of increased costs whether or not the drug was prescribed to us. And all of this from something that you could have taken on your own, easily and inexpensively.

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Amaretto Panna Cotta

Here’s a recipe for Amaretto Panna Cotta that is reminiscent of the flavors of amaretto liqueur.

Traditional panna cotta is nothing more than gelatinized cream with added flavors. In this Wheat Belly version, I replace cream with coconut milk, but this introduces a need to blend the mixture in order to keep the coconut oil in the coconut milk suspended. I also, of course, replace the sugar with the natural sweeteners of Virtue Sweetener, converting an indulgent dessert into a healthy dish. I used the Trader Joe’s canned coconut milk as it has no BPA and no emulsifying agents.

This basic recipe is easily modified by using pureed berries or strong black coffee in place of almond extract, or topped with chocolate shavings.

Makes 4

3 cups coconut milk (canned variety)

2 1/2 teaspoons gelatin

1 tablespoon Virtue Sweetener (or other natural sweetener equivalent to 4 tablespoons sugar)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Dash sea salt

1/4 cup sliced almonds

Place 1 cup of coconut milk in medium saucepan and sprinkle gelatin over top; let sit for 5 minutes.

Add remaining 2 cups coconut milk and sweetener and heat over low-heat until gelatin and sweetener dissolved. Remove from heat.

Add vanilla, almond, sea salt and blend using immersion/stick blender or standard blender. Divide mixture into 4 containers (e.g., 4 drinking glasses, wine glasses, martini glasses) and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Spread sliced almonds on a baking sheet and bake for approximately 3 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to cool. Top each panna cotta with the toasted almonds when fully gelatinized.

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Do you want to ghost your current doctor?

My editor at Rodale weighed in on my Undoctored book about to be released May 9th, 2017:

 

I ghosted on my long-term dermatologist a few years ago. It wasn’t her fault, per se, but I didn’t feel like our relationship was “healthy” any more, and it seemed like it was time to move on.

My doctor was well-respected by her peers, and considered a leading expert in psoriasis, the condition that was likely causing my hands to develop patches of dry, scaly skin that would crack and bleed if left untreated. At our biannual visits, she would examine my hands, shake her head, and then write me prescriptions for increasingly stronger steroid creams. These creams would peel away the top layers of dry skin on my hands to reveal shiny new skin below, and provide some relief in the process. However, it was always short-lived, and using the creams continuously wasn’t recommended as they lead to a variety of undesirable side effects.

I was told my condition was “incurable” and that I would just have to live with it for, likely, the rest of my life. No effort was ever made to uncover the root cause or connect it to any other health issues I experienced.

Is this the best our health care system has to offer?

Unfortunately, the answer right now is often yes, and I’m guessing you’ve probably had an experience similar to what I just described.

But what if there was a better way? What if you could take control of your health on your own and achieve superior results to what your doctor has been offering you? What if you could become “smarter” than your doctor and actually cure your health issues, not just treat the symptoms?

William Davis, M.D., cardiologist and author of the New York Times bestselling Wheat Belly books, absolutely believes that you can and outlines how in his new book Undoctored, on sale from Rodale Books on May 9.

Dr. Davis revolutionized the health world by convincing millions of people to cut grains out of their diet and reverse years of chronic health damage. Now, he’s going even further and will help you create a comprehensive program to reduce, reverse, and cure hundreds of common health conditions and break your dependence on prescription drugs through simple, effective, lifestyle interventions. Dr. Davis first explains how we got to this dismal point with our profit-driven health care system, and then walks readers through what you can do to take charge of your own health, safely and responsibly.

Don’t get me wrong—I have a lot of respect for doctors and they’re absolute lifesavers (literally!) in plenty of situations. But, when it comes to chronic diseases, a lot of doctors don’t have the time, incentives, or knowledge to work with patients to solve underlying, nagging health issues. My doctor was well-meaning, but ultimately couldn’t help me get to the root cause of my disease.

Undoctored could be the game changer in your healing journey and forever change the way you think about treating your health issues. Break up with your doctor if he or she is no longer meeting your needs, and achieve real health freedom today!

Yours in wellness,

Marisa Vigilante

Senior Editor

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April’s Wheat Belly transformation

April shared her Wheat Belly experience of losing weight and rediscovering health by rejecting all conventional dietary advice:

“I feel like I have been on a journey to health and wellness my whole life, trying to lose or maintain my weight in one way or another. Weight Watchers, meal replacement shakes by Body by Vi, Juice Plus, Advocare. Exercising to balance calories in, calories out, low fat, calories counting, you name it!

“I gained 60 pounds after several major life changes. I went to the medical doctor to discuss my weight gain and she told me the classic – eat less, exercise more, count calories, low fat, etc. I was so sick of hearing that – those strategies never lasted long term. So I undoctored!

“In January, 2016, I talked with my chiropractor about my weight. She suggested I try nutrition response testing. I completed those tests and was found to be sensitive to soy – go figure: the first ingredient in the meal replacement shake mixes that I had taken. I cleared my cupboards and fridge of all things soy – I was blown away by how many products contained soy.

“At this time I also started my self-education journey. The chiropractor I did nutrition response testing with had Dr. Davis’ Wheat Belly Total Health book in his lending library. I was intrigued and borrowed it – eventually getting it on audio. (I am on the road a lot for work and listening to books is easier.) At the beginning of May, 2016, I started to remove grains from my eating. I read the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox and went all in mid-May, 2016. I have been on a mission to regain health ever since. I didn’t do any of the grain replacement recipes at the beginning because I wanted to get a good handle on the grain-free lifestyle. I ate proteins, veggies, and healthy fats. I started the recipes about six months in, but I have since decided to just use them occasionally as treats.”

Among the more interesting aspects of April’s wonderful response to the Wheat Belly lifestyle is the improvement in the contours of the skin on her legs: the irregular surface characteristic of cellulite appear to have receded dramatically, a relatively common response with wheat/grain elimination. Such skin changes, of course, parallel body-wide reduction in inflammation that leads to long-term benefits such as greater weight loss, reduced insulin resistance, and reduced potential for heart disease, cancer, and dementia.

And note that April is enjoying such extravagant improvements in weight, health, and appearance with no meal replacement shakes to buy, no weight loss supplements, no extreme exercise, no counting calories or points.

 

 

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Review of Fat Head Kids

Filmmaker and author Tom Naughton has created yet another brilliant –and hilarious–work about diet. This time it’s a book aimed at kids called Fat Head Kids.

Tom’s Fat Head movie has become a documentary classic for anyone interested in diet, low-carb diet in particular, with its signature humor, wit, and ability to cut through the nonsense that defines conventional nutritional thinking. If you have not yet seen Fat Head, I urge you to do so. Tom has the unique ability to educate by applying plain talk and logic while splitting your sides–I predict that you will watch the movie several times and have everyone in your family do likewise.

Tom now brings his talents to Fat Head Kids to help kids–and adults–understand how conventional diet arguments became so wrong and how the real message is so simple, easily justified by the science, and effective. The book reads like a storybook, telling the story of diet logic gone sour, while showing that the answers in diet are really a pat of butter away.

The book is filled with gems of logic and humor, such as:

It’s no fun being a fat kid, period. If you’ve been getting fat, I know you want to change that. And I’ll bet at least a few people have already told you why you’re fat and what to do about it–like the classmates who explained it to me.

“Nice boobs, fat boy!”

“Maybe you should skip a meal now and then.”

“Or get off your big butt and move a little.”

What these helpful young men were telling me is that people get fat because of a flaw in their character. They like to eat, so they eat too much, and then they get fat. So to lose weight, they just need to apply some willpower. Eat a little less, exercise a little more, or both.

Now . . . let’s suppose these guys grow up and become doctors, or dieticians, or personal trainers–and they learn it’s not polite to make fun of fat people. They’ll probably still give the same advice, especially if they’ve never been fat. Only now that advice will sound almost like science:

The book is also beautifully illustrated, all created by Tom’s wife, Chareva.

Even though intended for kids, this book is also perfect for any adult who also wishes to understand why we persist in hearing such dietary fictions such as “Move more, eat less” or “Cut your fat and cholesterol.” Anyone who reads Fat Head Kids will come away with a clear understanding of healthy eating and why following advice like the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans is a recipe for disaster. Imagine Tom’s book became required reading in school–you might just witness a marvelous transformation in their health, appearance, weight, and learning.

 

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