Fat Boys by Sander Gilman, University of Nebraska Press, $27.95/£21.50, ISBN 0803221835 Reviewed by Simon Ings
IS OBESITY a medical problem or a moral one? This question underpins Sander Gilman’s history of, specifically, male obesity. Gilman’s cultural and medical arguments against lumping together male and female metabolisms are thoughtful and convincing.
But when it comes to his argument, even in his preface Gilman resorts to weasel words like “tentative”, and by the end of the introduction he dares to suggest that in nature, “the large male body does not have meaning” – a statement of such exquisite blandness that…
