Writing with authority and empathy, Raphael tells a disturbing story of taking a good thing and then overdoing it.
An eye-opening account of how the U.S. has become “a self-care nation, though arguably one that still lacks the fundamentals of well-being.”
A journalist who specializes in health and women’s issues, Raphael is perfectly situated to investigate the massive wellness industry. What started as a movement to increase health and reduce stress has become, in many cases, a cure worse than the disease, with social media “fitfluencers” setting standards that are impossible to meet and a host of self-appointed gurus selling diet programs of every conceivable type. Most of the diets claim to be backed by science, but when Raphael drills down, she finds little reliable evidence and plenty of nonsense. Nevertheless, many people worry endlessly that they might inadvertently deviate from the plan, even if it is making them less healthy. Others stress about chemical pesticides infecting their vegetables and fruit, but the amounts are so miniscule as to be meaningless. “Food has become an utterly fraught ordeal for the average woman,” writes the author. “A Fear Factor episode that never ends. If you’re to take extreme wellness gurus and fad diets at face value, you cannot consume any sugar, gluten, pesticide residue, dairy, ‘chemicals,’ and more.” Some gym programs resemble cults, and countless people get caught in a vicious cycle: You have to work hard to pay for the stress-reduction programs that are needed because you are working too hard. Raphael delves incisively into the marketing techniques used by so-called wellness companies and finds a remarkable level of manipulative cynicism. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop line is a prime example. “Their health advice always seems to converge to one end point: buy more stuff,” writes the author, who saves her sharpest barbs for the purported benefits of crystals and biohacking. She hopes the pendulum will swing back toward a more sensible center; until then, it’s clear that she subscribes to a useful piece of old advice: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Writing with authority and empathy, Raphael tells a disturbing story of taking a good thing and then overdoing it.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-79300-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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