Pretty Unhealthy: Why our obsession with looking healthy is making us sick

Nikki Stamp

sept 2019 · Allen & Unwin

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A heart surgeon and TV star investigates why our health is declining despite our obsession with fitspiration and the image of health.

How have we messed up our relationship with food and exercise so badly? Despite an explosion in the number of gyms, health foods and activewear, we are more obese, less active, more stressed than ever before.

We obsess over looking healthy, but our health is getting worse. Why did we start equating beauty with health? And is it possible to be fit and fat?

Equipped with Instagram accounts and blogs, online 'wellness experts' lead an army of followers towards what is labelled 'health' but might actually be far from it. We photograph ourselves and our food, but aren't sure whether we like the images until someone else 'likes' them first. It seems all this health and wellness is making us unhappy, poor and pretty unhealthy instead.

Heart surgeon and health commentator Dr Nikki Stamp unpicks the web of online pseudoscience and urges us to take back our health from the people who don't value it as much as we do. She explores the secret of long-term motivation for healthy diet and exercise, and shares the scientific value of self-kindness for true physical and mental health.

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Dr Nikki Stamp FRACS is a cardiothoracic surgeon, one of only 11 female heart surgeons in Australia. Her clinical work is at the forefront of cardiothoracic surgery, including transplants and congenital heart disease. She has a particular interest in women's heart disease and how the medical system can better serve female patients. Nikki has hosted heart health episodes for Australia's flagship science TV programme, Catalyst, as well as Operation Live, in which she commentated a live caesarean birth. Her first book, Can You Die of a Broken Heart?, has been translated into seven languages.