With its dramatic title, GRAND THEFT WEIGHT LOSS (How Stealing Scientific Discoveries Outside the Diet Industry Helps You Lose Weight) promises an intriguing new approach to health conscious, calorie aware eating. Author Michael Alvear–a columnist, media personality and prolific author of health and self-help books who is gifted with a breezy, conversational style of writing–claims to have “pored over hundreds of peer-reviewed studies by leading neuroscientists, evolutionary biologists, and behavioral psychologists” in order to “steal” their most important discoveries. The book’s selling point is that this information, discovered as a by product of other scientific investigations, has been hidden away because the instigators of the research had no use for it. In a breathless introduction Alvear promises that he will release the secret “weight loss codes” by opening these hitherto unexplored vaults.
The pitching of this weight loss guide as a kind of scientific heist is arresting and, in the opening sections, Alvear carries the reader with engaging and encouraging prose promising that his “secrets” will unlock the means to control over-eating without any specific dietary restrictions or endless lists of prohibited foods. In the now familiar style of the self-help/ popular psychology book, the introductory chapters contain numerous questions that Alvear promises to answer and, like those books that tease the revelation of a great secret, there is much delay and verbosity before anything much is exposed. And when it finally comes, it is something of a disappointment. For all the hyperbole, the meat of this book is a spin on the well established technique of “portion control” abetted by a healthy dose of cognitive behavioral therapy. As such there is nothing particularly new, indeed GRAND THEFT WEIGHT LOSS revisits much of the material Alvear himself covered in his earlier, well-received book “Eat It Later: Mastering Self Control & The Slimming Power Of Postponement”.
Perhaps the main problem with GRAND THEFT WEIGHT LOSS is that much of the information cited is anecdotal and there are no attempts to accurately reference any of the source material. This is not necessarily to say that the book is misrepresenting data, more that without providing even an index or bibliography, the author’s assertations cannot be backed up by any empirical evidence. Aside from the lack of accurate citations to the scientific studies, there are a few casual references within the text that on closer examination are not entirely correct. For example, whilst discussing breakfast, Alvear writes that the idea of it being “the most important meal of the day” comes from a 19th century advertising slogan created by cereal pioneer Harvey Kellogg. This is a popular assumption but quite spurious. The phrase was originally written in 1917, therefore in the 20th century, by dietician Lenna F. Cooper in an article in Good Health magazine. The magazine was indeed published by Kellogg but the adoption of the phrase as a marketing term wasn’t taken up until 1944 and then by the rival cereal manufacturer General Foods. This may seem a pedantic point but the obvious inaccuracy of a seemingly innocuous assertion does begin to raise questions about the authority of the entire text and for those wishing to retrain their brains to manage their problem eating there are probably more comprehensive, better referenced works available.
For those looking for a very basic introduction to the theories of portion control and cognitive behavioral therapy, Michael Alvear’s GRAND THEFT WEIGHT LOSS–written in an easy to follow, breezy, conversational style of writing–is not a bad place to start.
~Kent Lane for IndieReader