Recommendations issued by the Center for Disease Control advocating regular exercise were not palatable to most Americans. Even the Surgeon General's Healthy People 2000 Initiative was under pressure to tone down its public health goals. These scaled-down recommendations "came at a time of unparalleled opportunity to be both sedentary and to consume huge amounts of fatty calories on the cheap." (90)

But why were rates of obesity higher among the poor? "Their total life experiences were different," according to Critser; the rich came with an "already highly buffered existence." (92). "When the rich garden, even briskly, they are doing so with all the other health advantages that come from being rich," (92). Further, studies showed that doctors who catered to wealthy, white individuals were more likely to point out weight issues, whereas doctors of lower-income families remained mum. And if gardening is a recommended form of exercise, how, practically speaking, is someone in the projects going to plant rose bushes in a landscape of cement and chainlink fence? Where will they walk or run in a neighborhood whose high crime rates make this potentially dangerous? Exercise in the ways recommended simply wasn't feasible for many people; nobody seemed to factor in the reality of poverty.

In the lower-income segments of Washington DC. big has become "the defining metropolitan aesthetic." Fast food and plus-size clothing are pervasive. Part of the problem is related to other 'urban epidemics', like gang violence, drug use, and the disintegration of community. The traditional breadwinners are all too often in jail or dead, suffering the "the pain of poverty" (111). Dr. Gloria Wilderbraithwaite of Georgetown Mobile Pediatric Clinic theorizes that, "living in the cocoon of obesity is a very comfortable thing..."(112 There is something to be said for being large in a dangerous environment: being bigger makes you less of a victim simply because of mere physical presence. "The largest concentrations of the obese...reside in the poorest sectors of the nation." (116) Critser's focus on lower-income obesity rates is perhaps one of the most valuable parts of his book, as is his focus on contemporary notions of beauty.

When Jennifer Lopez came along, booty and all, she became almost instantly iconic - representative of all those 'imperfect' bodies that didn't fit the traditionally waif-like notion of beauty. Suddenly, women everywhere were no longer ashamed of their posteriors. The problem is that Lopez, while not being 'traditional' by the current measure of paper-thin runway models, actually has a great physique. To see her as overweight is a misperception. In truth, J-Lo is "a perfectly fit, tight-bodied woman, lean from years of professional dancing, with, when all is said and done, a nice but not very big rear end at all." (122). Lopez's supposedly "oversized" body is hardly justification to eat junk food and 'be okay' with 'big booty': her booty just isn't that big.