Book Review: "Why Women Need Fat"

When I see a title like Why Women Need Fat, I think, "Duh! Isn't that like asking 'Why does Mommy need wine?'"

Also, reading about dietary fat makes me crave it, so I often had to eat ice cream while reading this book. I don't know why that happens. It's probably the same reason that I craved cigarettes during the last trimester of each of my pregnancies and why, while reading a lively Facebook discussion of an encounter with an inappropriate midday drunk, I suddenly want a cold beer. You know?

Or maybe you don't. Anyway, Why Woman Need Fat (by William D. Lassek, M.D., and Steven J.C. Gaulin, Ph.D.), discusses why American women are, on average, so much fatter than they used to be and so much fatter then women on other countries.

In short, it's the omega-6's. And our decrease in omega-3 fats.We tend not to eat as much "real food" as we used to. Our dependence on so much processed food, which is filled with cheap soybean and corn oils, is making us fatter.

Lassek and Gaulin discuss a woman's "ideal" body shape (that preferred by men in various studies). This shape is thin-waisted and full-hipped. Why? The fat a woman stores on her body--specifically, on her hips, butt, and thighs--contains DHA, which a developing fetus (and growing, nursing infant) needs for brain development. Women need fat.

But the American diet has become quite low in omega-3 fats, which are a source of DHA (and EPA), and high in omega-6 fats, which lack DHA and (to sum up) also are not good for you. So American women tend to pack on more fat to achieve the same level of DHA needed to support a growing baby.

We need fat, but we need the right kind of fat. Nonfat processed foods are not the way to go.

Some of the science in this book seems pretty simplistic, such as when the authors say that one-third of the women in this country need C-sections in order to give birth. I didn't like that they did not question whether this was due to an increased medicalization of birth here and whether the Caesarians were actually necessary; they simply accepted that of course they were and used this to prop up part of their argument, namely, that our fat selves are often unable to get babies out on our own.

The authors discuss diet and food in a fairly in-depth way. They also clearly explain one's "set point" for weight, how one's body has a natural weight it tends to be (or would be, if one gave up processed foods and corn-fed meats and basically just ate better).

So, women, butter is better! Eat lots of nuts and grass-fed animals and piles of vegetables and grains and some dairy, and your body will be the way you're supposed to be: healthy.

Please join me at the BlogHer Book Club discussions to talk about this book!

Note: This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed are my own.