Forget the Fear of Food, The Essential Guide, by Dr Chris Finn

Forget the Fear of Food The Essential Guide by Dr Chris Finn is an interesting book.

Nutritional consultant Dr Finn covers a wide variety of topics in her book. She asks, and answers a number of questions such as:-

Why can low fat foods make you fat? How can 'dieting'  make you put on weight? And how do you stop food controlling you?

The book contains much good advice and information on what happens when we eat, why some people eat more than they really should, the psychology of eating and dieting and how we can learn to control what we eat and not let what we eat control us.

However, a point of caution. The book seems to point out problems but fails to address them adequately. Dr Finn seems to imply that exercise will not help to reduce weight, and that sugar is the food of the devil.

She bases this on the fact that in 1972 John Yudkin published a book called 'Pure, White and Deadly' in which he roundly attacks sugar as being responsible for much of the ills besetting mankind. Although doubt has been placed on the results of his research. ("What's that professor? You fed a rat the equivalent of a human eating 100 pounds a day and it fell ill? Remarkable!" is a parody of the arguments raised, but there is a fair point. Rats aren't people and deal with sugar in a different way to people. )

I feel that the book would have worked better with an index, but it is a worthwhile book, even so.

It is published by Need to Know Books in paperback at £9.99.

Weight Loss, the Essential Guide

This is another of the highly approachable and easy to use Need 2 Know books. It is written by Sara Kirkham who is not a guru of a weird fads celeb diet. Sara is a genuine nutritionist who lectures and writes on nutrition, so her book is a breath of very fresh air.

No fads, no fantasies, no fallacies, this book is the real deal if you really do want to lose weight in a sensible, structured and safe way.

She provides commonsense ways to reduce your calorific intake, tells you why control of portion size is so vital, tells you how to get past or beyond the weight loss plateau and how to measure your progress.

The book contains some enticing recipes that will help you reduce your weight as part of a calorie controlled diet, which is, of course, exactly where this book comes in!

Sara also provides tips on how to create shopping lists that will help you in your battle of the bulge, how to keep a food diary and why this can be so important.


The book also has a wealth of hints, tips and information and also some references to some other books that might be of help for the aspiring dieter and some information on some groups that could  be useful. There's also a wealth of websites for you to browse at your leisure.


The book is in paperback and costs £9.99, the ISBN is 978-1-86144-090-7