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Article: Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West.(Review)
- Article from:
- Journal of Social History
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Journal of Social History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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By Peter N. Stearns (New York: New York University Press, 1997. xvi plus 294pp. $25.95).
Often, one of the first things French people visiting America remark upon is the large number of fat people they see here. Recently, three months of living in a Paris neighborhood full of stylishly-slim folks made my wife and I feel fatter by the day, even though our weight remained unchanged. Peter Steams' new book says that both of these perceptions are based on reality - Americans are the fattest people in the Western industrial world, while the French are the slimmest - and uses comparative history to try to explain why this is so.
Stearns points out that there ...