Obese people are not lazy, or weak, or morally bereft; they are most certainly not bad. They are fighting their genes, they are struggling against their biology. Until we in society understand that, until we are able to remove the stigma from being obese, we are never, ever, going to be able to fix the problem.
I have to embarrassingly admit that I didn't fully understand the entire content of the book, even from the beginning which explains about leptin, MC4R, and other technical terms. However, despite my poor knowledge extraction from the text, I enjoyed reading the experiments and fascinated with the results. I also like to read the thorough research and the details of the discussed topics in this book, especially common issues such as obesity and diabetes and popular diets that exist nowadays. Most of us are curious to know whether those diets are as effective as what they sell on their advertisements. If it is not, why? I'm glad that I got most of the answers from this book, and Dr Giles had given a lot of convincing explanations to support for every proposed topic.
I learned a lot of new terms, and most of the things that I've read from the book is an eye-opener to me. I'm amazed and speechless at the same time. It can be complicated to understand, but I liked how he tried to slowly go into the details, the history of the issue as well as the root cause of the specific problem.
Being intolerant of lactose is a completely different thing from having a milk allergy. Intolerance is a result of the inability to digest the sugar present in milk; it is a biochemical problem emerging from an enzyme deficiency. An allergy, however, is having an adverse immune response to the protein in milk.
It's an interesting read when it comes to Paleo diets and gluten-free, which is one of the trending topics nowadays. Although I'm not a scientist, nutritionist, or doctor, I always feel that if a person doesn't have any food intolerances or allergies or religious restrictions, the person should enjoy his or her food well. But of course, in a moderate manner or a balanced meal. I liked how he concluded that if you can't eat gluten because of coeliac, you can stay away from it but if you can eat gluten, eat gluten. I didn't know the existence of this book 'Wheat Belly' before reading this book, but it seems funny to me to know someone that targeting attacks on wheat.
I'm speechless when every time I heard someone following all these trending diets or stop eating certain things after a celebrity or Instagram influencer promoting it. First of all, they are not dieticians or nutritionists. Second, your body is different from theirs. Everyone has a different body mechanism. Third, maybe they are paid to promote a specific diet, which you never know. After all, this is one of the methods of how they earn money. Fourth, there are some people who don't have the luxury to enjoy food like a normal person due to allergies or intolerances, and they wish to enjoy food like a normal person. In contrast, you are restricting yourself if you have a healthy body or not experiencing any intolerances or allergies. I don't understand how a celebrity understands your body more than yourself. What I worried about people who are restricting their diets is the lacking of certain nutritions due to absence of particular food.
Rating: ★★★★
More reviews can be found on Goodreads: Gene Eating by Giles Yeo.