|
Food for thought
Food and Fitness - a dictionary of diet and exercise: Michael Kent. Oxford
1997. 377 pages hardback, £20. ISBN 0-19-863147-2
This is a really excellent basic reference work for anyone in the field of
sport, exercise and basic nutrition for either. It is what it says on the
cover, a dictionary, the subjects laid out alphabetically in double columns
throughout. It's difficult to think of anything relevant that doesn't get at
least a brief mention. The language is generally accessible to the layman, and
never any more technical than it absolutely needs to be. Like Johnson (he wrote
a dictionary too), Mr Kent's personality frequently emerges and some of the
articles are distinctly tongue-in-cheek, like those for gamesmanship,
gastroporn ('a term usually used by those who believe that food should only be
consumed for sustenance'), and the man on the potato-only diet who disliked
them so much that he lost weight very rapidly. I like the description of
cricket: a dynamic team sport characterised by short bursts of activity
punctuated by irregular periods of inactivity. Not to mention visits to the
bookie to do a little match-fixing. The author is himself a runner and writes
with an eye to that rare commodity common sense.
Drugs and pseudo-supplements like ginseng receive adequate coverage. EPO,
testosterone, amphetamines and cocaine figure, but nandrolone doesn't –
presumably because it hadn't become notorious at the time of writing. In
general the rule is that those that work are dangerous and are banned, and
those that aren't banned probably don't work. Even carbohydrate loading may
have bad side effects if used repeatedly.
Numerous (very clear) drawings and diagrams illustrate muscles, techniques,
pictures of food, and most of the exercises, even some which warn against
potentially harmful activities.
What I know as the Zone or Sears diet isn't listed as such but appears as the
Atkins diet, and like the very similar Scarsdale diet it is rightly described
as potentially harmful. The 'Italian Football Diet' (no, really) is in essence
very similar to the diet recommended by Coppi's soigneur Cavanna in 1950. Frank
Miller thought that the trouble with Italian food is that six days later you're
hungry again. The quotations at the start of each letter are among the
unexpected pleasures. Nixon (Richard) disliked exercise and thought that being
a couch potato is a form of participation in sport, and Henry Ford regarded
exercise as bunk.
Six useful appendices cover: Recommended Dietary Allowances and Intakes; RNIs;
composition of selected foods, covering macro- and micronutrients, water, sugar
etc; ratings of sports for stamina, strength, etc; energy expenditure; and
benefits of sport. There are two excellent indexes, alphabetical and thematic,
filling 26 pages. As you'd expect from OUP, production standards and binding
are elite level. They need to be, because this is one book that's going to get
a lot of wear and tear.
Ramin Minovi
|