A hard-hitting, exceedingly well-documented call for action.
Nestle (Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health/New York Univ.; Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics, 2012, etc.) calls for a campaign to regulate and tax the multibillion-dollar soda industry modeled on the successful anti-smoking campaign.
There is a proven correlation between the rises in obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and tooth decay and the increasing amounts of sweetened sodas consumed in the United States and globally. We must address this health hazard, writes the author, by doing “everything possible to discourage the marketing, promotion, and political protection of sugary drinks.” As Nestle implores, “everyone interested in health should be taking a closer look at who, when, where, and to whom soda companies are marketing their products.” The current marketing juggernaut is a result of a series of long-running, major campaigns by the significant players in the industry. For example, “in the early 1990s,” writes the author, “Coke and Pepsi began to offer large sums to colleges and universities for the right to sell only their company’s products on campuses.” At the end of the decade, similar arrangements were made with “high schools, middle, and even elementary schools.” Efforts by municipal and federal governments to rein in the industry—e.g., in New York City, a subway-poster campaign coupled with a proposed soda tax and limit on portion size—have been consistently watered down or defeated by the industry, which uses “marketing, lobbying, partnerships, and philanthropy to promote sales, regardless of how their product might affect health.” Sponsorships of sports events, celebrity endorsements, and high-profile disaster-relief efforts also foster brand allegiance and maintain popular support for brands such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Nestle reports that health advocates have achieved some success in reducing soda consumption in the U.S., but much remains to be done. In 2014, Coca-Cola diversified into “highly caffeinated energy drinks recently associated with the deaths of several young people.”
A hard-hitting, exceedingly well-documented call for action.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-19-026343-0
Page Count: 564
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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