Today's children may well become the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will be shorter than that of their parents. The culprit, public health experts agree, is obesity and its associated health problems. Heretofore, the strategy to slow obesity's galloping pace has been driven by what the philosopher Karl Popper calls ''the bucket theory of the mind. '' When minds are seen as containers and public understanding is viewed as being a function of how many scientific facts are known, the focus is naturally on how many scientific facts public minds contain. But the strategy has not worked. Despite all the diet books, the wide availability of reduced-calorie and reduced-fat foods, and the broad publicity about the obesity problem, America's waistline continues to expand. It will take more than food pyramid images or a new nutritional guideline to stem obesity's escalation. Albert Einstein once observed that the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them, and that we would have to shift to a new level, a deeper level of thinking,tosolvethem. Thisbookarguesfor,andpresents,adifferent perspective for thinking about and addressing the obesity problem: a systems thinking perspective. While already commonplace in engineering and in business, the use of systems thinking in personal health is less widely adopted. Yet this is precisely the setting where complexities are most problematicandwherethestakesarehighest.

Thinking in Circles about Obesity: Applying Systems Thinking to Weight Management

Tarek K.A. Hamid, Operational and Information Sciences, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California

Low-carb?low-fat?high-protein?high-fiber?Americans are food-savvy, label-conscious, calorie-aware-and still gaining weight in spite of all their good intentions. Worse still, today's children run the risk of a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Thinking in Circles About Obesity brings a healthy portion of critical thinking, spiced with on-target humor and lively graphics, to the obesity debate. Systems and medical physiology scholar Tarek Hamid unites systems (non-linear) thinking and information technology to provide powerful insights and practical strategies for managing our weight and our health. Hamid's clear insights dispel dieters' unrealistic expectations and illuminate dead-end behaviors to tap into a deeper understanding of how the body works, why it works that way, and how to better manage it. Included are innovative tools for:

? Understanding why diets almost always fall short of our expectations.

? Assessing weight gain, loss, and goals with greater accuracy.

? Abandoning one-size-fits-all solutions in lieu of personal solutions that do fit.

? Replacing outmoded linear thinking with feedback systems thinking.

? Getting the most health benefits from information technology.

?Making behavior and physiology work in sync instead of in opposition.

Given the current level of the weight crisis, the ideas in Thinking in Circles About Obesity have much to offer clinical and health psychologists, primary care physicians, public health professionals, parents, and lay readers. For those struggling with excess weight, this book charts a new path in health decision making, to see beyond calorie charts, body mass indexes, and silverbullets.

From the reviews: "Systems thinking is a perspective and a set of conceptual tools that enable us to understand the structure and predict the behavior of complex systems. While already commonplace in engineering and in business, the use of systems thinking impersonal health is less widely adopted. Yet health is precisely the setting where dynamic complexity is most problematic and where the stakes are highest. Thinking in Circles about Obesity: Applying Systems Thinking to Weight Management, aims to fill this gap. The book applies systems thinking to personal health in a form that's accessible to the general reader with the hope that it would have a profound influence on how ordinary people think about and manage their health and well being." BehavioralHealthCentral.com, December 30, 2009 "Commonplace in engineering and in business, the use of systems thinking in personal health is less widely adopted. ? health is precisely the setting where dynamic complexity is most problematic and where the stakes are highest. Thinking in Circles About Obesity: Applying Systems Thinking to Weight Management ? aims to fill this gap. The book applies systems thinking to personal health in a form that's accessible to the general reader ? ." (The Systems Thinker, Vol. 20 (10), December/2009 - January/2010) "'Thinking in Circles About Obesity' and is by Tarek K. A. Hamid ? . I first saw the book reviewed while doing a Google Fast Flip search for 'obesity' and was intrigued by it. ? I have a copy and read ? I'm really excited by it. It's well-researched (with about 300+ endnotes and index), written for the lay person, and explains very well both how complex weight loss is and how we can better think about it." (Stephen Colbert, Weight Watchers, May, 2009)