Drop Dead Healthy

There are a bazillion books purporting to have the latest, greatest information about health and what you can do to lose weight or increase your life span. I used to read some of these from time to time, but I started getting tired of the conflicting messages and crazy regimes that so many of them suggest. Now I usually steer clear of "health" books unless I think there's a very good reason for picking one up. A. J. Jacobs is that reason. When I saw the title of his new book: Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection, I knew I would read this. If you aren't familiar with Jacobs, he does what some people refer to as "stunt journalism" or "year of" writing: the author undertakes a project or lifestyle for a year in order to write about it. Jacobs has also written The Year of Living Biblically (which is self-explantory) and The Know-It-All, where he read the entire encyclopedia.

In his latest adventure Jacobs attempts to try all of the things that people claim will make you healthy, from simply exercising to wearing noise-cancelling headphones and taking testosterone supplements. Jacobs takes on every aspect of the body-not just the expected heart and stomach, but also the teeth, feet, skin, etc. He visits experts and consults scientific studies. His writing, as always, is entertaining and humorous. I appreciated that Jacobs cut through all the debates and tells the reader which recommendations actually have scientific data backing it up. In the end, he identifies what he thinks are the most important things he should be doing, and his own personal family experiences show that even if you do everything right, you can still get sick. I felt like much of what he determines to be important, I already knew and have been trying to do myself. But he does have some good tips for sticking with it (Thinking about eating that cupcake? Write out a check to the KKK and have a friend mail it if you give in.) He also reminds us of the importance of things like flossing and reducing our exposure to noise. His success in creating a less sedentary life is probably one of the most important lessons of his experience and the one I know I need the most help with. Treadmill at the reference desk? Not such a crazy idea.