Losing it

America's never-ending quest for slimness bombards us from every television screen, drugstore aisle, and shopping mall. In this fast-paced and fascinating expose, veteran journalist Laura Fraser goes undercover to look at this country's obsession with being thin. Her meticulously researched journey through Dietland shows how the biggest hucksters since P. T. Barnum create and exploit our worries about weight.

Fraser's reporting takes her inside doctors' offices, marketing seminars, weight-loss spas, and medical conferences. Posing as a patient, she investigates diet doctors and weight-loss scams, undergoing injections, hypnosis, and cookie diets along the way. She interviews weight-loss celebrities such as Richard Simmons, Susan Powter, and Dean Ornish. The results are eye-opening, dramatic - and entertaining.

She convincingly demonstrates that far from helping most people lose weight, the vast majority of these Dietland profiteers contribute to our weight obsession - and our obesity.