New Book by Cambridge Health Alliance Author Unearths the Origins of Obesity

New Book by Cambridge Health Alliance Author Unearths the Origins of Obesity

Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Revere, Somerville, Winthrop, MA…Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is celebrating psychologist Deirdre Barrett, PhD, on the release of her new book, Waistland: The (R)Evolutionary Science Behind Our Weight and Fitness Crisis (W. W. Norton & Company, June 2007).

By 1995, two-thirds of Americans were overweight, and obesity was killing 300,000 people a year. In response, the past decade has seen us consume 50% more fast food and five more pounds of sugar each year. In Waistland, Dr. Barrett tackles the obesity and fitness crisis from an evolutionary standpoint. Our bodies, our metabolisms, and our feeding instincts were designed during human evolution’s hunter-gatherer phase. We are programmed to forage for sugar and saturated fats because these were once found only in hard-to-come-by fruit and game.

Now, these same foods are everywhere — in vending machines, fast food joints, restaurants, grocery stores, and school cafeterias — and nearly impossible to avoid. Additionally, thanks to “supernormal stimuli” — artificial creations that appeal more to our instincts than the natural objects they mimic — these foods have become irresistible. Dr. Barrett uses this concept to explain why we now reach for the berry-flavored JELL-O instead of the berries, and why we are attracted to the contours of imaginary bones in the McRib sandwich. We are addicted to these foods, to the insulin they release into our blood, and to the brain chemicals they trigger.

According to Dr. Barrett, radical changes are necessary, and, fortunately, are actually biologically easier. Waistland describes how to re-program our bodies, break food addictions, and ignore our attraction to supernormal stimuli. Dr. Barrett delves into scientific research — from animal ethology to evolution — to examine the history of obesity and show the disastrous direction in which our instincts have led us. She marshals everything from hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral techniques to political campaigns to demonstrate how our intellect can get us (and our waistlines) back on course.

Deirdre Barrett, PhD, is a psychologist with Cambridge Health Alliance and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, where she teaches in the Behavioral Medicine Program. She is president of the Society for Psychological Hypnosis, Division 30 of the American Psychological Association, and past president of the Association for the Study of Dreams. She has written three books, including The Committee of Sleep, and lives in Cambridge.

W. W. Norton & Company, the oldest and largest publishing house owned wholly by its employees, strives to carry out the imperative of its founder to “publish books not for a single season, but for the years” in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, college textbooks, cookbooks, art books and professional books. It now publishes about 400 books annually in hardcover and paperback. For more information: www.wwnorton.com

Cambridge Health Alliance is a regional healthcare system with three hospitals and more than twenty primary care practices in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston's metro-North communities. As a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance offers medical residency/training programs and undergraduate learning experiences in hospital and community settings. Cambridge Health Alliance also includes the Cambridge Public Health Department, CHA Physician's Organization (CHAPO), and Network Health, a managed Medicaid and Commonwealth Care plan.