Diet and the Disease of Civilization
244 pages, 6 x 9
10 black and white photos, 5 color photos
Paperback
Release Date:26 Jan 2018
ISBN:9780813589640
Hardcover
Release Date:26 Jan 2018
ISBN:9780813589657
Diet books contribute to a $60-billion industry as they speak to the 45 million Americans who diet every year. Yet these books don’t just tell readers what to eat: they offer complete philosophies about who Americans are and how we should live. Diet and the Disease of Civilization interrupts the predictable debate about eating right to ask a hard question: what if it’s not calories—but concepts—that should be counted?
Cultural critic Adrienne Rose Bitar reveals how four popular diets retell the “Fall of Man” as the narrative backbone for our national consciousness. Intensifying the moral panic of the obesity epidemic, they depict civilization itself as a disease and offer diet as the one true cure.
Bitar reads each diet—the Paleo Diet, the Garden of Eden Diet, the Pacific Island Diet, the detoxification or detox diet—as both myth and manual, a story with side effects shaping social movements, driving industry, and constructing fundamental ideas about sickness and health. Diet and the Disease of Civilization unearths the ways in which diet books are actually utopian manifestos not just for better bodies, but also for a healthier society and a more perfect world.
Bitar’s fascinating thesis is that diet books are ways to understand contemporary social and political movements. Whether or not you agree with her provocative arguments, they are well worth reading.
Diet and the Disease of Civilization is a timely and beautifully executed piece of work, providing a distinctly new perspective on the histories of food, the politics of fitness, and the development of popular self-help guides.
Adrienne Rose Bitar lets you see contemporary American diet books as a continuation of the oldest, eighteenth-century American story: self-improvement as saving the world, and not vice-versa. She reads them as manifestos of a nineteenth-century American story, of America—of what was once called 'Americanitis'—as a disease: 'Modern life makes Americans sick.' Diet books are fictions, Bitar insists throughout, and not altogether negatively: many read them for the same reason we read novels. Which makes you wonder: if diet books were listed on the best-seller charts as fiction, would they drive out all the novels, or stop selling?
Instead of evaluating diets by their ability to promote weight loss, Bitar reads them as powerful stories. She discovered that these seemingly mundane diet books reinvent history, measuring the success or failure of civilization by the health of body and body politic.
Starting a New Year diet? Cornell historian explores American history through diet books' by Jeff Tyson
Diet and the Disease of Civilization on The Page 99 Test' by Marshal Zeringue
'Diet and the Disease of Civilization on Campaign for the American Reader' by Marshal Zeringue
Diet and the Disease of Civilization spotlight on 360 Magazine Online
[Diet and the Disease of Civilization] argues that mythologies of the 'Fall of Man' underlie the Paleo Diet and three other regimes popular in the United States.
Why Do Humans Diet? Cultural critic Adrienne Rose Bitar reveals how four popular diets tell us an awful lot about our anxieties and fears, even beyond health.
Business for Breakfast,' Money Radio interview with Adrienne Rose Bitar
?An Unofficial History of Rich Women and Their Diets
Diet and the Disease of Civilization: An Interview with Adrienne Rose Bitar by David Gerstle
New Books Network Podcast' interview with Adrienne Rose Bitar
Opinion: It’s past time for migrant children labor laws to grow up' by Adrienne Rose Bitar
A multitude of controversial issues will encourage questions for discussion and analysis. This text is an appropriate addition to inquiry-type courses in food studies, the sociocultural aspects of food, and women’s studies. Complex language and ideas make this work best suited for advanced students. Recommended.
Bitar’s very well-researched and intriguing analysis is worth the read, perhaps to those more interested in American studies than in utopian studies. For those whose interests overlap in the two areas, Diet and the Disease of Civilization is ideal.
Diet Books as Utopian Manifestos: A Conversation with Adrienne Rose Bitar
The Food Readers Organization 'Featured Author' Adrienne Rose Bitar
The stories behind history's dumbest diets' by Raquel Laneri
Fake Meat: the Future of Food?' by Conan Milner
Bitar looks at the ways the multi-billion dollar diet book industry not only delivers dieting advice, but also tells readers how they should live. Through historical and literary analysis, Bitar examines four diets that, in their language, tell a story beyond food. Instead, Diet and the Disease of Civilization points out that dieting systems portray anxieties about modernity and American culture, showing readers how diets can cure a national disease: civilization.
The Government's Role in the Rise of Lab-Grown Meat,' by Adrienne Rose Bitar
Gift Guide for Book Lovers' by the editors of Stanfordmag.org
Diets can do more than help you lose weight – they could also save the planet,' by Adrienne Rose Bitar
Important Steps To Shaping A Healthier Future Of Food,' by Julia B. Olayanju
America's Weirdest Historical Fad Diets,' by Jen Rose Smith
Diet and the Disease of Civilization is an important first foray into a critical analysis of contemporary diets that takes a cultural studies and literary criticism approach. I commend Bitar for bringing a new lens to this material and agree that these texts, and their corresponding subcultures, offer rich fodder for further study.'
'A historical survey of American diet books has been waiting to happen, and Adrienne Rose Bitar has carried out this project with great success. She finds these books to be in dialogue with American culture and that, no matter which diet book you open, the theme is about civilization in decline.'
The Truth Found in Diet Books' podcast interview with Adrienne Rose Bitar
http://radiomd.com/show/her/item/40205-the-truth-found-in-diet-books
What to Know Before Starting Intermittent Fasting,' by Michael Easter
https://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/a29192545/intermittent-fasting-beginners-guide/
How Instagram brought nightmare retro food back to life' by Raquel Laneri
https://nypost.com/2019/12/10/how-instagram-brought-nightmare-retro-food-back-to-life/
The Turkey Has Been the Subject of Thanksgiving-Day Arguments for Longer Than You Probably Think,' by Adrienne Bitar
https://time.com/5738997/vegeterian-thanksgiving-turkey-history/
Bitar creates a compelling argument about the connections between diets and national identity....[A]rtful and captivating, and they provide important lessons for the reader.
MEATHEADS: How red meat became the red pill for the right' by Eamon Whelan
Inside the Knockdown, Drag-Out War on Saturated Fat,' by Michael Easter
For God So Loved the World He Gave Us Sundried Tomatoes,' by Agnes Howard
What Is A Toxin?' by Erin Blakemore
Bitar’s fascinating thesis is that diet books are ways to understand contemporary social and political movements. Whether or not you agree with her provocative arguments, they are well worth reading.
Diet and the Disease of Civilization is a timely and beautifully executed piece of work, providing a distinctly new perspective on the histories of food, the politics of fitness, and the development of popular self-help guides.
Adrienne Rose Bitar lets you see contemporary American diet books as a continuation of the oldest, eighteenth-century American story: self-improvement as saving the world, and not vice-versa. She reads them as manifestos of a nineteenth-century American story, of America—of what was once called 'Americanitis'—as a disease: 'Modern life makes Americans sick.' Diet books are fictions, Bitar insists throughout, and not altogether negatively: many read them for the same reason we read novels. Which makes you wonder: if diet books were listed on the best-seller charts as fiction, would they drive out all the novels, or stop selling?
Instead of evaluating diets by their ability to promote weight loss, Bitar reads them as powerful stories. She discovered that these seemingly mundane diet books reinvent history, measuring the success or failure of civilization by the health of body and body politic.
Starting a New Year diet? Cornell historian explores American history through diet books' by Jeff Tyson
Diet and the Disease of Civilization on The Page 99 Test' by Marshal Zeringue
'Diet and the Disease of Civilization on Campaign for the American Reader' by Marshal Zeringue
Diet and the Disease of Civilization spotlight on 360 Magazine Online
[Diet and the Disease of Civilization] argues that mythologies of the 'Fall of Man' underlie the Paleo Diet and three other regimes popular in the United States.
Why Do Humans Diet? Cultural critic Adrienne Rose Bitar reveals how four popular diets tell us an awful lot about our anxieties and fears, even beyond health.
Business for Breakfast,' Money Radio interview with Adrienne Rose Bitar
An Unofficial History of Rich Women and Their Diets
Diet and the Disease of Civilization: An Interview with Adrienne Rose Bitar by David Gerstle
New Books Network Podcast' interview with Adrienne Rose Bitar
Opinion: It’s past time for migrant children labor laws to grow up' by Adrienne Rose Bitar
A multitude of controversial issues will encourage questions for discussion and analysis. This text is an appropriate addition to inquiry-type courses in food studies, the sociocultural aspects of food, and women’s studies. Complex language and ideas make this work best suited for advanced students. Recommended.
Bitar’s very well-researched and intriguing analysis is worth the read, perhaps to those more interested in American studies than in utopian studies. For those whose interests overlap in the two areas, Diet and the Disease of Civilization is ideal.
Diet Books as Utopian Manifestos: A Conversation with Adrienne Rose Bitar
The Food Readers Organization 'Featured Author' Adrienne Rose Bitar
The stories behind history's dumbest diets' by Raquel Laneri
Fake Meat: the Future of Food?' by Conan Milner
Bitar looks at the ways the multi-billion dollar diet book industry not only delivers dieting advice, but also tells readers how they should live. Through historical and literary analysis, Bitar examines four diets that, in their language, tell a story beyond food. Instead, Diet and the Disease of Civilization points out that dieting systems portray anxieties about modernity and American culture, showing readers how diets can cure a national disease: civilization.
The Government's Role in the Rise of Lab-Grown Meat,' by Adrienne Rose Bitar
Gift Guide for Book Lovers' by the editors of Stanfordmag.org
Diets can do more than help you lose weight – they could also save the planet,' by Adrienne Rose Bitar
Important Steps To Shaping A Healthier Future Of Food,' by Julia B. Olayanju
America's Weirdest Historical Fad Diets,' by Jen Rose Smith
Diet and the Disease of Civilization is an important first foray into a critical analysis of contemporary diets that takes a cultural studies and literary criticism approach. I commend Bitar for bringing a new lens to this material and agree that these texts, and their corresponding subcultures, offer rich fodder for further study.'
'A historical survey of American diet books has been waiting to happen, and Adrienne Rose Bitar has carried out this project with great success. She finds these books to be in dialogue with American culture and that, no matter which diet book you open, the theme is about civilization in decline.'
The Truth Found in Diet Books' podcast interview with Adrienne Rose Bitar
http://radiomd.com/show/her/item/40205-the-truth-found-in-diet-books
What to Know Before Starting Intermittent Fasting,' by Michael Easter
https://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/a29192545/intermittent-fasting-beginners-guide/
How Instagram brought nightmare retro food back to life' by Raquel Laneri
https://nypost.com/2019/12/10/how-instagram-brought-nightmare-retro-food-back-to-life/
The Turkey Has Been the Subject of Thanksgiving-Day Arguments for Longer Than You Probably Think,' by Adrienne Bitar
https://time.com/5738997/vegeterian-thanksgiving-turkey-history/
Bitar creates a compelling argument about the connections between diets and national identity....[A]rtful and captivating, and they provide important lessons for the reader.
MEATHEADS: How red meat became the red pill for the right' by Eamon Whelan
Inside the Knockdown, Drag-Out War on Saturated Fat,' by Michael Easter
For God So Loved the World He Gave Us Sundried Tomatoes,' by Agnes Howard
What Is A Toxin?' by Erin Blakemore
ADRIENNE ROSE BITAR is an American cultural critic specializing in food, health, and concepts of American civilization. She is a postdoctoral associate in the history department at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Introduction 3
1 Paleolithic Diets and the Caveman Utopia 26
2 Devotional Diets and the American Eden 52
3 Primitive Diets and the “Paradise Paradox” 85
4 Detoxification Diets and Concepts of a Toxic Modernity 119
Conclusion 149
Acknowledgments 162
Notes 166
Bibliography 205
Index 225
1 Paleolithic Diets and the Caveman Utopia 26
2 Devotional Diets and the American Eden 52
3 Primitive Diets and the “Paradise Paradox” 85
4 Detoxification Diets and Concepts of a Toxic Modernity 119
Conclusion 149
Acknowledgments 162
Notes 166
Bibliography 205
Index 225
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