The Male Gut

Robert Fulford focuses on obesity among men:

After years spent running weight loss programs for both sexes, in 1985 [Harvey] Brooker began his unique class for men. He’d come to realize that men and women approach the problem of weight in strikingly different ways, almost like two species. Men aren’t socialized to think about it, as many women are. Since men typically cook far less than women, we are less equipped to analyze the content of what we eat. We don’t often read food labels, and many of us wrongly believe we can work off the pounds through exercise alone. Above all, our culture genially forgives fatness in men, as it does not in women. Men’s magazines provide plenty of advice on muscle development but show little interest in weight. Brooker makes that point in a book he wrote two years ago, It’s Different for Men: “Would Outdoor Life suggest a program to lose ten pounds in two weeks?”