When I heard about this book I just cringed. I believed and believe that this book will do a lot of damage to the efforts of a great many people who really can and should lose weight using a sensible balance of cutting down on calories consumed and ramping up activity.

Recently I read an excellent review/refutation of several of the major premises of the book. Published in the NY Times on May 3, Emily Bazelon voices my concerns to such an extent I feel I cannot say it or analyze it much better than she did.

The bottom line is, we all have a RANGE of weight which is appropriate for us, individually. Most of us will never achieve the stick figure of a top model, nor should we– or they, for that matter. We do have to make peace with who we are, genetically, but that does not give us “permission” to weigh 250 when a hundred pounds less is what God intended. (So to speak.)

Yes, weighing properly within one’s legitimate personal range may be a struggle sometimes. Or all the time. We might be food addicts, just like some people are alcoholics or others are junkies of one kind or another. There is such a thing, for real, as a sex addict, for instance.

But just because one has a real problem doesn’t mean that one should just throw in the towel and say “That’s the way it is, so I’m not going to do anything about it !”

Tell that to the parent of a kid killed by the drugged or drunken driver who has refused participate in treatment (Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton ?). Or the spouse of a sex addict (Tony Soprano ?). Or the kid whose parent ignores health warnings and eats themself into the hospital, or worse.

Yeah, everybody has a problem. But many of us can do something about it.