lifestyles

Wellness culture promises a reprieve from the stress of long workdays, restrictive dieting, and punishing exercises through providing the alternative of a balanced lifestyle that simply focuses on feeling good. However, the reality of wellness culture is more complicated. While some assert that it successfully promotes well-being, others argue that it is simply a way of rebranding the dieting and exercise regimens that already existed, building an industry around the products and services that allegedly promote wellness. This volume clarifies the nebulous concept of "wellness" and explores how culture, business, and health intersect to create today's wellness culture.

"Journalist Annie Daly . . . will travel to Jamaica, Brazil, Japan, India, Norway, and Hawaii to learn why their inhabitants are so much healthier than Americans, and what we can learn from them. And while these traditions may appear to have little in common, at their root is an essential truth: living well isn't a trend--or a competition"--Provided by publisher.

"Provides a . . . guide to help you embrace sustainable living as both a celebration of style and a necessary strategy for maintaining our everyday comforts despite increasingly limited resources"--Provided by publisher.

"Anthology of diverse viewpoints exploring how lifestyle, business, and health intersect to create today's wellness culture"--.

"As we become a more digital society, the gains that have been made for the environment by moving toward a paperless world with more and more efficient devices will soon be or already have been offset by the number of devices in our lives that are always using energy. But many don't think about the impact on the environment of the 'Internet of things.' Whether it's a microwave connected to the internet, use of Netflix, or online shopping, these technological advances have created new impacts that the people who are most well-versed in these issues haven't considered. . . Schlossberg reveals the complicated, confounding and even infuriating ways that we all participate in a greenhouse gas-intensive economy and society, and how some of the biggest and most consequential areas of unintended emissions and environmental impacts are unknowingly part of our daily activities"--Provided by publisher.

Spotlights popular men's and women's fashions of the 1920s. Discusses how fashions and accessories of this decade differed from years past and offers a look at pop culture of the 1920s. Includes photographs, a glossary, and further reading sources.

Chronicles the birth and death of cool as a cultural concept, examining the psychological underpinnings of coolness, discussing the cool worldview, and looking at the reasons why people stopped aspiring to be cool in the 1990s.

"So begins The Elephant in the Room, Tommy Tomlinson's remarkably intimate and insightful memoir of his life as a fat man. When he was almost fifty years old, Tomlinson weighed an astonishing--and dangerous--460 pounds, at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, unable to climb a flight of stairs without having to catch his breath, or travel on an airplane without buying two seats. Raised in a family that loved food, he had been aware of the problem for years, seeing doctors and trying diets from the time he was a preteen. But nothing worked, and every time he tried to make a change, it didn't go the way he planned--in fact, he wasn't sure that he really wanted to change. In The Elephant in the Room, Tomlinson chronicles his lifelong battle with weight in a voice that combines the urgency of Roxane Gay's Hunger with the intimacy of Rick Bragg's All Over but the Shoutin'. He also hits the road to meet other members of the plus-sized tribe in an attempt to understand how, as a nation, we got to this point. From buying a FitBit and setting exercise goals to contemplating the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, America's "capital of food porn," and modifying his own diet, Tomlinson brings us along on a candid and sometimes brutal look at the everyday experience of being constantly aware of your size. Over the course of the book, he confronts these issues head-on and chronicles the practical steps he has to take--big and small--to lose weight by the end. Affecting and searingly honest, The Elephant in the Room is a powerful memoir that will resonate with anyone who has grappled with addiction, shame, or self-consciousness. It is also a literary triumph that will stay with readers long after the last page."--Pages [2-3] of cover.

"Fat Nation is a social history of obesity in the United States since the second World War. In confronting this familiar topic from a historical perspective, Jonathan Engel attempts to show that obesity is a symptom of complex changes that have transpired over the past half century to our food, our living habits, our life patterns, our built environments, and our social interactions. He offers readers solid grounding in the known science underlying obesity (genetic set points, complex endocrine feedback loops, neurochemical messengering) but then makes the novel argument that obesity is a result of the interaction of our genes with our environment. That is, our bodies have always been programmed to become obese, but until recently never had the opportunity to do so. Now, with cheap calories ubiquitous (particularly in the form of sucrose), unwalkable physical spaces, deteriorating rituals and norms surrounding eating, and the withering of cooking skills, nearly every American daily confronts the challenge of not putting on weight. Given the outcomes, though, for those who are obese, Engel encourages us to address the problems and offers suggestions to help remedy the problem. "--Amazon.com.

The American Middle Class takes a close look at the segment of the population that lies between the poor and the rich, examining how this group has played an important role in US society and how it has changed in recent decades.