- Fat Families Thin Families: How to Save Your Family from the Obesity Trap by Amy Hendel
- Hardcover: 475 pages
- Publisher: BenBella Books; 1 edition (May 11, 2008)
- ISBN-13: 978-1933771496
Back-of-the-book blurb: This comprehensive guide to diet and nutrition provides solid advice for families looking to adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The four habits of healthy families—Plan Together, Prepare Together, Play Together, Portion Together—and possible integration strategies are thoroughly discussed as well as the Healthy Family for Life (HFL) diet plan, which contains both family and individual food assessments, activity and weight patterns, activity planning, and suggestions for family support. Providing practical tips for making healthy changes on a daily basis and recipes that are simple, yet nutritious, enough for the busiest of families, this manual is an invaluable reference for those who tend toward obesity and encourage unhealthy eating habits, as well as families looking to reinforce their already healthy tendencies.
She is Too Fond of Books’ review: You can imagine my reaction when I saw the title of this book – containing not only fat and thin, but also obesity. I complained about the word diet in The Game On Diet book, “why can’t we use a word like lifestyle, so we don’t reinforce body image issues with the impressionable teen in my life?!” Well, as with The Game On Diet, Fat Families Thin Families is all about learning habits to achieve and maintain health, not a crash-and-burn diet and exercise plan or ranting lecture.
Author Amy Hendel tackles what she calls the “in your face” title early on. It’s as if she’s talking directly to me and my issues with those words when she explains that the title is intentionally blunt and the words deliberately chosen. She’s talking about fat and thin attitudes – it’s possible to have a fat attitude (getting little exercise, eating a high-fat, highly processed diet) and be physically thin; but the negative consequences of that fat attitude are hurting the body on the inside and those negative habits will come to the surface eventually.
So, I got past the title and kept reading – what did I find? A well-written, easily understood plan for working together with the entire family. This is not a “you’re the mom, this is what you need to do for your family” book. This is a “here’s how you can do this together, get everyone involved, make it your lifestyle” plan.
There are several heavier (more serious) diagnostic tools and charts to determine overall health of individuals and the family dynamic, activity snapshots, family eating habits, and the level of change needed to be made. These are tools to assess where you are before beginning the plan. At first glance the titles of the tools (and the fact that some are printed in official-sounding Appendices) can be a bit daunting. Taken line by line they make sense; straight-forward and quantitative measurements to help your family form its goals.
Hendel proposes the Healthy For Life (HFL) plan, a “whole family approach” with the mnemonic of 4 Ps – plan, prepare, portion, and play (activity) together. One of the principles I found most interesting (and core to the HFL plan) is the the “yes, no, maybe so” method of categorizing foods.
Each chapter concludes with a Quick-Summary and Tips for Teens and Tips for Kids. These sections reinforce the idea of a whole-family plan, and address issues and concerns for the various age groups. It also gives responsibility to the teens and younger children to make the best choices based on what is in their control.
Usually when I read a book I take notes on things that I might want to incorporate into a review – a particularly beautifully written section of prose in a novel, an insightful and memorable description in a work of non-fiction. I found myself taking pages of notes while reading Fat Families Thin Families, and even (gasp!) marking portions of the text and writing notes in the margins! Notes for myself; notes to share with my family; habits I’d like to incorporate into our meal prep.
Hendel’s approach seems sound – she has medical research and experience to back-up the HFL plan; it is presented clearly – with lots of explanations and those text boxes and bullet-point lists that I love. As we approach back-to-school, I plan to get my family more involved with the 4 Ps. It will benefit us in many ways – quality time together, learning healthy habits, and less pressure on me to manage it all by myself.
Great review! I’ll certainly want to check this out. Thanks!
That sounds like a great book, especially if it led you to engage in criminal activity (writing in the margins!). I think that putting eating in the *family* context is so important. Certainly with my family if you don’t sit and eat [junk] with them, you’re engaging in some sort of rejection and alienation, complete with hurt and hard feelings. And who wants that? And of course there is the family-bred association of food and love. And who *needs* that?!!! So it sounds good – if I had a copy I too might engage in criminal activity!
It sounds like this book takes a great healthy approach with the emphasis on lifestyle rather than diet. Great review!
This sounds like an interesting book with a lot of useful strategies. I think some of the things in this book would benefit my family, so I will be taking a closer look at this. Great review, and thanks!
Wonderful review. This really sounds like a great book that many people (including myself) should pick up. Weight issues and health issues are all around us and everyone claims to have the perfect diet plan. I’ve tried many of them hoping to get back into the shape I was when I was a figure skater, but I crashed and burned so many times that my confidence in my abilities started to waver. This summer I moved back home and begged my mom to help and support me as a last resort. And help she did, we worked together to exercise, cook healthier meals, and avoid all that bad stuff that got me to where I am in the first place. It wasn’t total success and I still have a long way to go, but it was the start that I needed. I’ll look for this book on the shelves and hopefully get around to reading it and handing it over to my mom who will undoubtedly also appreciate the information.
Interesting. I’ll have to leaf through it next time at the bookstore. Too bad America is so obsessed with thin and so unable to be thin.
Amy – it’s hard for me to argue with getting the kids more involved with dinner planning and prep! I did get a lot great ideas (recipes in the back, too)
rhapsody – we’ve had good family dinner time habits (generally hold dinner for J, unless he’s really late getting home from work), but I’m psyched about my new commitment to getting everyone involved.
Kathy – yeah, I really didn’t like fat/thin (and then “obesity”) on the cover, but I love how Amy Hendel tackled that right at the outset.
zibilee – There’s no plan that will work for every family (IMHO), but I think every family can find pieces of this that can become lifelong habits.
Jennifer – congrats on your successes! You’re smart to realize that it’s just a beginning (Rome wasn’t built in a day, and all that). I’m sure having a partner to make meal plans and exercise with helped a lot.
Beth F – and I’m not a “dieter.” I’m all for optimizing health, and establishing habits that will support a healthy lifestyle. Just a quirk of timing that I’m talking about two diet books within a few months. And they both are more about establishing habits than restricting food
Thanks to all of you for leaving comments and embracing the need for this family approach. We all do need to stop dieting and start living…healthfully that is and with a family “team approach” so everyone embraces healthier habits. If we want to conquer generational obesity – it starts in the home, with mom and dad as team captains, involving every family member – even teeny kids!! I also send out a free daily health tip – sign up at http://www.healthgal.com. It’s one habit…one tip…to a healthier family for life!!
It’s like your book reviews are talking to me today. This sounds like a great approach for our family.
Sounds like a book I need to check out. Although I loved the Game On Diet, the hard part was not having everyone else in the family doing it as well. This might help bring that together.