Review

Choc horror

Why women need chocolate
Debra Waterhouse
Vermilion, 1995, £7.99

Perhaps the title of Ms Waterhouse’s previous book, Outsmarting the female fat cell, should have prepared me for something of the author’s tone. However, being open-minded, I proceeded with interest to read the author’s explanation for the common fact that many women crave sweet things, particularly chocolate.

After all, couldn’t it be a perfectly healthy craving — doesn’t chocolate in fact meet a physiological need that we have? Somehow I doubted it, but persevered with Ms Waterhouse’s argument, anticipating the imminent presentation of evidence. Unfortunately, the book soon falls into a pattern of facile explanations of the biochemistry of women’s bodies and nutritional needs, followed by the author’s own prescriptive dietary advice. Her main contention is that women should eat a small amount of foods that they crave rather than denying the cravings, which will lead to a more balanced diet (and indeed lifestyle), and, yes, reduced weight — assumed to be the main aim of every 20th century woman.

This prescription is first over-emphasised in the book’s introduction, and repeated ad nauseam throughout. This is another book written in an ‘American style’ and, like many other books of its type, attempts to sell us dietary therapy according to the author’s interpretation of what appears to be selective evidence. If her ideas are based on soundly researched material it is not presented here in any form in which it can be assessed. Her argument is delivered instead with the force of personal opinion.

For the most part, the book covers much of the information presented in other ‘positive lifestyle’ books, ie selling the key to achieving the ‘feelgood factor’. So let’s have something more original next time.