Chew, Chew, Chew

Obesity has become a scourge of modern America, and there is no sign of this trend stopping. Exercise and good nutrition are not emphasized to today’s youth, and a way of life started young is carrying over into adulthood. Bad habits are becoming the norm as each generation is raised with increasingly poor lifestyles and the obesity epidemic is allowed to fester unchecked.

L.T. Fox examines this problem in depth, from the basics of the digestive process to Horace Fletcher, whose Fletcherism is essentially the subject of this book. The root of obesity is what and—more important—how Americans eat.

Americans devour food quickly and consequently eat much more than they need before becoming full. Fox posits that the first step toward curtailing obesity is a very basic and achievable change to this manner of eating. By slowing their pace and chewing their food longer Americans can effect a positive change on the amount of food they consume at each meal.

But what Fox has to say transcends chewing a certain number of times before swallowing. It is a fundamental reevaluation of the American attitude toward food and the role eating plays in our lives.