PETER TOBIA / Philadelphia Inquirer
Publishers keep popping out more diet books, including a recent volume inspired by “The Da Vinci Code.” |
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Diets, for the most part, don't work. The diet industry, however, does, voraciously consuming almost $50 billion a year, exclusive of celery.
If diets worked, people wouldn't be on them for decades at a time, abandoning one to embrace another, caroming from grapefruit to bacon, and they would accept the fact that one simple regimen works: Eat less, exercise more, end of story – and fat.
However, this doesn't stop diet books from popping up with frightening alacrity like so many orders of fries. This year has produced two best sellers: “The Shangri-La Diet” and “The Sonoma Diet,” proof that it never hurts to name a regimen after a place more inviting than where readers live. It doesn't stop publishers from getting giddy, riding the crest of whatever fad they can find. To whit: “The Diet Code,” based on you-know-what.
Diet books, published to coincide with New Year's resolutions, register a surge in sales this time of year, with the tidal wave of anxiety brought on by the first whiff of Lycra and sunscreen.
Health and fitness books are projected to net $530 million in sales this year, up from $510 million in 2005, according to Business of Consumer Book Publishing.
“It's among the healthiest categories in publishing,” says Michael Norris, senior analyst for Simba Information, a market research firm.
Interestingly, publishers are issuing far fewer titles, searching for the next Dr. Arthur Agatston, the current industry leader with 19 million copies of his South Beach oeuvre in print.
There were 3,135 health and fitness titles released in 2005, down from 5,959 the previous year, according to the R.R. Bowker Books in Print database.
“Publishers are building up certain brands and taking a very measured approach,” Norris says.
Many authors preach the obvious – portion control! – while others act as if they've discovered mysterious truths. Successful titles manage to combine encouragement with a wealth of recipes and strategies. Here are a few of the latest offerings:
“The Diet Code: Revolutionary Weight Loss Secrets From Da Vinci and the Golden Ratio” by Stephen Lanzalotta (Warner Wellness, $25).
We're not making this up. We wish we had made it up, and then, with our royalties, flown to Milan and Paris for a gluttonous feast. A lot of the good carb/bad carb patter is mentioned here by Lanzalotta, “a master woodworker, painter, baker and chef,” listed in that order. A woodworker offering diet tips is a first. His advice: “Choose 15th-century Mediterranean foods,” which translates into pumpkin cannoli and skewered short ribs. That sounds like the slow-food movement, but maybe this cuts down on eating, too.
“The Shangri-La Diet” by Seth Roberts, Ph.D. (Putnam, $20).
The best-designed book in the stack, also the shortest, with no recipes, no complicated charts, humor and famous quotations. Each diet book has a Eureka Moment, The New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell observed; Roberts' is: “The better food tastes, the more fattening it is.” Now he tells us! The Berkeley psychology professor's solution: Eat dull food, drink fructose-sweetened water. The diet's name is supposed to put people “at peace with food,” though, obviously, not in Italy or France.
“The Whole Grain Diet Miracle” by Lisa Hark (DK Publishing, $25).
This book subtly announces itself as “the healthiest diet ever!” Two problems: Grain on the cover instantly produces contact swelling, and the author, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Nutrition Education and Prevention Program, looks like “The Sopranos'” Jennifer Melfi, which makes the reader want to whack something, most likely a bag of quinoa, for which nine recipes are included.
“Low-Calorie Dieting for Dummies” by Susan McQuillan (Wiley, $22).
Great. You already feel fat. This book comes along so you can feel fat and dumb. “Boredom is many a dieter's downfall, but I have an obvious solution: Do something!” Yes, buying this book means you're dumb. McQuillan does provide a list of activities, including painting a self-portrait and – we kid you not – chewing gum.
