Susan Powter has reemerged onto the wellness scene as a fiercer than ever, fully awake, fully energized – and may I say – totally sexy one-woman powerhouse. Her newly updated and released book, The Politics of Stupid, is not just a wellness manifesto, but a scathing, all-out attack on the industrial titans who traffic in the duping and dumbing-down of an overweight, unfit, and convenience-minded America.
By Jane Devin
Thank you, Dr. Atkins and Company. Without you, she may have stayed secluded on some farm, and her vibrant mind and inspiring words might never again have reached the public masses. Yet, because of you, and the well-marketed lies that left millions of unsuspecting people eating a pound of bacon for breakfast, she is back.
Susan Powter has reemerged onto the wellness scene, not as some former icon scrambling for a comeback in a world with a ten minute memory, but as a fiercer than ever, fully awake, fully energized – and may I say – totally sexy one-woman powerhouse.
Her sword is still forged from the unyielding metal of truth, and she is ready to do battle with those who have perverted the fundamental concepts of wellness in order to make a buck (or a few billion). Her newly updated and released book, The Politics of Stupid, is not just a wellness manifesto, but a scathing, all-out attack on the industrial titans who traffic in the duping and dumbing-down of an overweight, unfit, and convenience-minded America.
You may want to stop reading here if you’re one of those whose reaction to the word “wellness” is to beat your chest and declare yourself impervious to poison – or if you have a devil-may-care attitude when it comes to being lied to, used, and then abandoned. If you want to intentionally fill your body with growth hormones, chemical preservatives, pesticides, and other manufactured poisons – if you want to help contribute to the multi-billion dollar, revolving door industry of “miracle” diets and fat pharmaceuticals – you’re not ready for Powter’s message.
On the other hand, if you’ve done these things without really considering the consequences – if like millions of American women, you’ve trusted government and industry to keep you and your family safe from harm – then Powter wants to enlighten you.
The Politics of Stupid will not only tell you why 98% of dieters fail, but will let you in on the ugly truth behind the revolving door of the weight-loss industry, which means to keep revolving as long as there are people who are blind enough, naive enough, and desperate enough to take the ride.
“The pillars of the past,” Powter states, “have crumbled under their own lies. Health statistics speak volumes about the experts who have been in charge of our health for years.” Facts, and an abundance of them, back Powter up. In the $276 billion dollar food industry, low-fat processed foods, which rely on chemicals to supplant natural ingredients in everything from dairy products to cookies made a nifty $35.6 billion dollars in 2005. In the last decade, more than 21,579 new foods have been manufactured and marketed as “low or no” fat or “low or no” saturated fat. Yet, according to recent statistics, Americans are now among the fattest people on earth. 64.5% of adults can be classified as overweight or obese – and the rate of childhood obesity is climbing at an alarming rate, increasing 54% in the last fifteen years.
In reading Powter’s message, it is (or should be) clear to any thinking, rational person, that it is not the health conscious who should be labeled “freaks”, but those who have consciously distorted and bastardized the concept of food. Food being the fuel the human body needs to operate at an optimum level. Powter makes the strong and convincing argument that when that necessary fuel comes packed with hormones, chemicals, and poisons – and is even brashly marketed in super-sized portions – it ceases to be be a source of health or energy. When 65% of an average American’s daily diet consists of processed food – and concurrently the rates of obesity and obesity-related diseases are rising – the link is obvious.
Food – which Powter obviously takes great delight in – should not be the enemy, and it doesn’t have to be. She advocates not dieting, but a “lifestyle exchange”. Trading in what doesn’t work for what does. Exchanging the chemical copycats of food for real foods. Whole and natural foods – the way they grow in nature, outside of the clutches of industrial farming and processing plants.
Powter brings a sense of intellectual, physical, and sensual bliss to organic, whole foods that may just be the inspiration millions of women need to step away from the over-industrialized, processed poisons that have left them struggling with self-image, obesity and chronic, life-threatening diseases.
Knowledge is power, and power is the crux of the message in The Politics of Stupid and Powter’s Eat, Breath, Move, and Think program for lifetime health. She envisions a world where people — particularly women, who have been the most victimized and “branded” by the corporate and political patriarchy of consumerism — hone their knowledge and take back their power of choice. Where they will take the reins and not just move away from their own exploitation as consumers, but where they will forge new trails in wellness, society, and the body politic.
Powter, the mother of three, exudes health and vitality at 50 years old. She is her own best advertising, having lived (and nurtured her family with) the Eat, Breath, Move, and Think lifestyle for over twenty years. Through the fire of personal and professional challenges, Powter has held fast to the rational, informed, no-nonsense health choices she discovered when she lost 133 pounds in the late 80’s, and went on to become a 90’s superstar in the world of fitness, who not only motivated millions of women through tapes and infomercials, but who wrote six books – three of which made the New York Times bestseller list.
The Politics of Stupid, slated to be released by Simon & Schuster on May 6th*, is Powter’s seventh book, and if it’s as successful and understood as it deserves to be, its readers may never buy another book about diet or obesity. The answers are there, bright and shining in the light of awareness. And if the black and white of her words leaves you wanting more, Powter’s colorful and interactive website, SusanPowterOnline, is filled with inspiration, workouts, video blogs, support, and well, everything you’d expect from a powerhouse like Susan Powter. This is a woman who does nothing half way and just about everything with passion.
