I am grateful to Colin Norman and Tim Appenzeller for their invaluable help and encouragement at Science on the series of investigations that took me ever more deeply into the questionable practices of preventive medicine and public health. I’m grateful to Hugo Lindgren and Adam Moss, both formerly of The New York Times Magazine, for taking the chance on the very controversial article—“What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?”—that led directly to the work on this book.

I am deeply indebted to Jon Segal at Knopf for an extraordinary job of editing and for being, quite simply, everything I could ever hope for in an editor. I’d also like to thank Knopf editorial assistant Kyle McCarthy and copyeditor Terry Zaroff. I am grateful, as ever, to my agent at ICM, Kris Dahl, for two decades of unwavering support.

I would like to thank Alexis Bramos-Hantman, Jeanna Bryner, Jasmin Chua, Susan England, Emily Hager, Jeanne Lenzer, David Mahfouda, Tariq Malik, Chung Pak, Gaia Remerowski, Sandra Neufeldt, Rochelle Thomas, and Dori Zook for helping with the research and providing the legwork for this book. I can’t thank Richard Ahrens enough for his translation of Bahner’s 1955 discussion of lipophilia. I’m grateful to Stefan Hagen for his German connections. I’d like to thank Barry Glassner for his camaraderie, Charles Mann for his friendship and his guidance, and Marion Roach Smith, as ever, for her sisterly wisdom. I’m grateful to Ned Tanen, Kitty Hawks, and Lawrence Lederman for their unconditional support and encouragement. Finally, I’d like to thank the late, great Louie Vassilakis (1949–2004) for making one otherwise cold and cacophonous corner of Manhattan feel like home.

Illustration Credits

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

Chapter 4 Charts showing data from MRFIT trial. Reprinted from The Lancet, 328, Browner, Hulley, Kuller, Martin, and Wentworth. “Serum Cholesterol, Blood Pressure, and Mortality: Implications from a Cohort of 361,662 Men,” pages 933–936. Copyright October 1986, with permission from Elsevier.

Chapter 14 “Fat Louisa” photograph. Reprinted from The Pima Indians, Russell, page 67. Copyright 1908.

Chapter 14 Photographs from Nigeria. Reprinted from Obesity Symposium, Adadevoh. “Obesity in the African.” 60–73. 1974, with permission from Elsevier.

Chapter 21 Photographs of lipodystrophy with lower-body obesity. Die Krankheiten des Stoffwechsels und ihre Behandlung. Copyright 1931, page 186, Die Magersucht, Grafe, Figure 20 (Photograph of O. B. Meyer). With kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media.

A Note About the Author

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR