Posted: Sat May 25 2002
New Book Links Obesity To Eating A Hell Of A Lot Of Food

While many people believe the brand of shoes they wear or the flavor of toothpaste they use causes obesity, the real culprit is large servings of high calorie food.

That's the message of a new book which examines the eating habits of Americans. The book, called Restaurant Confidential, studied the calorie and fat content of popular restaurant items like cheese fries, whipped cream drinks, and deep-fried onion plates.

Many doctors had previously sought to explain weight gain by looking to more obvious suspects like wearing Nike shoes or using wintergreen toothpaste, but the book's authors provide evidence that food may be the real culprit, "It may seem suprising to most people, but when a potato is deep-fried in lard and then covered with cheese, it actually increases in calorie and fat content, not decreases as previously thought."

A similar phenomenon appears to occur with popular breaded and deep-fried onion dishes.

Also, according to the book, deep-dish stuffed-crust meat-lovers pizza is another cause for worry: "A years worth of milk from a full-grown dairy cow is used for the cheese. The cow is then slaughtered and placed on top of the pizza. Surprisingly, this doesn't appear to be good for you."

Though many nutritionists are hailing the book as "ground breaking" and "a real eye opener", many in the business of weight-loss question the book's conclusions. Dr. Henry Atkins, owner of a store specializing in diet related merchandise, commented "The book in no way shows that food high in calories and fat actually causes people to gain weight, only that certain foods contain a lot of it, and that people who eat large amounts of those foods are usually overweight. It's far from proven. The only proven way to lose weight is to eat nothing but hamburger and pork fat."

The authors of Restaurant Confidential declined to comment on Atkins' statements.