Paul Campos

A Fan's Life: The Agony of Victory and the Thrill of Defeat, by Paul Campos, looks at fandom both within sports and in society at large.

While the book holds together very well as a single examination of fandom, even when it moves out of sports fandom, I was like two very different people reading it. Both of me (what??) enjoyed it but for different reasons.

The sports fan, more on definition in a moment, spent a lot of time going into the past and remembering the heartbreaking moments. I seem show more to fall into a category that would include former diehard fans (such as Campos) and the casual fan. From my earliest memories until about age 26 or so I attended games, lived and breathed, for two sports franchises. The Baltimore Orioles and the Baltimore Colts. I think you can guess where I'm from, huh? At 8 years of age I attended all four games of the '66 World Series (my grandmother lived in Van Nuys so I had family to put me on and take me off the flight). There was no better (in my eyes) place to watch a game than Memorial Stadium. Within 9 months I became unusually jaded for some of only 10-11, 1969, January the (no way they can win) Jets beat my Colts in the Super Bowl and October the (no way they can win) Mets beat my Orioles in the World Series. I have never felt comfortable or confident when watching a game of anything (even tiddlywinks!). Traumatized, I tell ya, traumatized. Or at least it seemed so to me. When I was 26 the Colts ran out on the city and their fans in the middle of the night, and I quit being such a diehard fan for anyone. If they don't care, I don't have to care. So much for memory lane!

The other me, in looking at fandom, my own, Campos' Wolverines fandom, and the many stories that illustrate it for others and how it has become the way we conduct government and politics, is also jaded. But where I am powerless to keep sports teams from being evil, I can become more of an activist and try to right the ship that has almost floundered completely due to politics as (empty-headed) fandom. The analogy is spot on, and the chapter where the full argument is presented, I had to read twice.

I would recommend this to both the sports fan as well as anyone curious for how to understand at least some of what has gone wrong in the country.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

There's no denying that media and society has placed unfair pressure on people - particularly women - to look "pretty" and have a "good" body, and you don't only see that in Western society. And that pressure has absolutely led some women to dangerous, or even deadly ends.

And the author is not wrong in saying that a BMI of 25-30 doesn't mean someone is unhealthy. This book is slightly better than other books that FA/HAES proponents use to defend themselves, but only slightly. Also, bringing show more up Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was really unnecessary. What research he does use in here is cherry-picked to try to support the (erroneous) conclusions the author writes about.

But telling people that obesity has no effect/impact on your health, or that it's impossible to lose weight and keep it off is an outright lie, and any book that says that gets an automatic F. Hell, the author lost 50 pounds while writing this book (by his own admission) and noticed an improvement in his health. How did he do this? Dieting! Which he claims is bad earlier in the book. I mean, lolwut. show less

I am so thankful that Paul Campos has attempted to debunk many of the myths surrounding obesity and health. He does a great work of demonstrating how obesity research is flawed and yet policy is made on that flawed research. He also elaborates on how the diet industry has been involved in much of the obesity research to its own advantage.
I went to a seminar on nutrition over 20 years ago during which it was explained that the insurance industry-based nutrition tables were arbitrarily show more determined much to the chagrin of nutrition experts. Furthermore, they did not include people over the age of 60 in the "studies" to determine those tables and yet they just extrapolated weights for people over the age of 60. The "studies" were actually done with thin, white, college-age males. How egregious!
I have always contended that the American Heart Association's promotion of a low fat diet is also based on the same faulty research cited in this book. It's difficult to argue against such large and embedded entities such as the diet industry and the AHA and I applaud this effort to do so. I used to work with a cardiologist who predicted that in a few decades we will start to see more people with osteoporosis (including a increase in men with this disorder) due to restriction of fat in cardiac diets.
I did not give this book 5 stars. The author gets rabid against his lawyer colleague for her diet book and rants a bit too much. This gets a bit obsessive and goes on a bit too much.
I do plan on using some of the information presented in this book to take to the University of Michigan Regents who recently denied any selling of sugar-sweetened beverages (including juices) anywhere on the campus, including the health system, in an effort to decrease obesity. Their paternalistic decision to do this smacks of discrimination against obesity and deprives people of making their own choice. Furthermore, the chemicals in "diet" drinks are now suspected of increasing food cravings and they are known to be unsafe for pregnant women and those with allergies to the chemicals. show less

This was an interesting read…I do think that Campos oversimplifies things a bit…but I also think he’s right about the “obsession” over dieting and the effects of “yo-yo” dieting being more “dangerous” than just maintaining one’s weight and being at least moderately active. I’ve long felt that weight is not as big an issue as it’s being made out to be and that healthy living and increased activity are far more important than being pencil thin. I maintain (though Campos show more book does not say as much) that along with increasingly sedentary lifestyles, processed “convenience” and “fast food” are the biggest problems “we” face. I’d defiantly recommend this, though I’d also recommend the reader use a few grains of salt and expect the same message to be repeated at last a dozen times in the book…but overall, I think he has a good point that offers some sanity in an increasingly insane view of weight and health in the U.S. today. I give it a B+. show less