Facing fat | |
Licence to eat. Kerith Duncanson. Yarralumla: RWM Publishing 1998 (209 pp.). ISBN: 0 9586891 2 1. |
Until recently, obesity was regarded as a risk factor for coronary disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, gallstones and certain cancers. It is now recognised as a disease in its own right. Recent figures show that 18% of both men and women in Australia have a body mass index greater than 30 and are classified as obese. A further 45% of men and 31% of women are overweight, with a BMI between 25 and 30. Faced with patients carrying excess weight, many doctors do not know what to do. Simply telling patients to lose weight or handing out diet sheets is ineffective. Few doctors have time to effectively counsel their overweight patients, many of whom then fall prey to the quick-fix diet merchants. Licence to eat is a useful tool for overweight patients. Written by Kerith Duncanson, a qualified and experienced dietitian, it abandons the "blame the victim" approach and avoids long lists of do's and don'ts. Instead, it points out the flaws inherent in most dietary approaches and takes a more kindly approach, encouraging the overweight to accept themselves as worthwhile people who need to make peace with food rather than seeing it as an enemy. To cope with the stresses of life without turning to the refrigerator or pantry, Duncanson outlines a series of strategies which draw on her own experiences of having battled alternate bingeing and starving. She also includes many useful case studies. There is extensive accurate information designed to help people to make better food choices, a necessity in an age characterised by nutritional illiteracy and its associated health problems. The book's initial chapters may appeal more to women than men, although the low key approach and encouragement to eat filling foods rather than "diet" foods should also appeal to men. Rosemary A Stanton
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