Understanding Nutrition (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac)
by: Eleanor Noss Whitney, Sharon Rady Rolfes
Topics include:
Book Description
This best-selling introductory nutrition text in colleges and universities has been used by more than one million students! UNDERSTANDING NUTRITION provides accurate, reliable information through its clear writing, dynamic visuals, and integrated study aids, all of which engage and teach students the basic concepts and applications of nutrition. This comprehensive text includes up-to-date coverage of the newest research and emerging issues in nutrition. The pedagogical features of the text, as well as the authors' approachable style, help to make complex topics easily understandable for students. From its stunningly restyled and refined art program to the market-leading resources that accompany this text, UNDERSTANDING NUTRITION connects with its readers and continues to set the standards for texts used in the course.
Book Info
Undergraduate textbook for nutrition courses. Includes information on gene expression and vitamins to nutriceuticals, phytochemicals, and alternative therapies. This edition addresses new research and controversial issues. Previous edition: c1995. Disk calculates daily intake, dietary allowances, and goal percentages. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
About the Author
Eleanor Noss Whitney, PH.D., received her B.A. in Biology from Radcliffe College in 1960 and her Ph.D. in Biology from Washington University, St. Louis, in 1970. Formerly on the faculty at Florida State University and a dietitian registered with the American Dietetic Association, she now devotes full time to research, writing, and consulting in nutrition, health, and environmental issues. Her earlier publications include articles in SCIENCE, GENETICS, and other journals. Her textbooks include NUTRITION CONCEPTS AND CONTROVERSIES, TENTH EDITION; UNDERSTANDING NUTRITION, TENTH EDITION; UNDERSTANDING NORMAL AND CLINICAL NUTRITION, SEVENTH EDITION; NUTRITION AND DIET THERAPY, SIXTH EDITION; and NUTRITION FOR HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE, SECOND EDITION, all with Thomson Wadsworth. She also recently co-authored PRICELESS FLORIDA (Pineapple Press), a comprehensive text examining the ecosystems in her home state. Her additional interests include energy conservation, solar energy use, alternatively fueled vehicles, and ecosystem restoration. Sharon Rady Rolfes received her M.S. in nutrition and food science from Florida State University. She is a founding member of "Nutrition and Health Associates," an information resource center that maintains an ongoing bibliographic database that tracks research in over 1000 nutrition-related topics. Her publications include the textbooks UNDERSTANDING NUTRITION, TENTH EDITION; UNDERSTANDING NORMAL AND CLINICAL NUTRITION, SEVENTH EDITION; LIFE SPAN NUTRITION: CONCEPTION THROUGH LIFE, NUTRITION FOR HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE, SECOND EDITION; and the NUTRITION INTERACTIVE CD-ROM (all with Thomson Wadsworth). In addition to writing, Sharon Rolfes also lectures at universities and at professional conferences and serves as a consultant for various educational projects. She maintains her registration as a dietitian and membership with the American Dietetic Association.
Reviews:
Required for a semester, but keeps for a lifetime
Overall, I found this text to be chocked full of helpful knowledge. I was required to purchase this book for a course I took in beginning nutrition, but I will keep it forever because of the wealth of knowledge. The concepts are suburbly explained and illustrations make understanding the information easier. Even though most people buy this for a class, I believe it is easy to read and assimilate the information. The Appendices are chocked full of useful facts about the current diet and exchange lists, including food pyramids and such.
The only information I disagree with is the section on vegetarianism. Surely they could have done a better job and included more than four pages! However, there are plenty of books dedicated solely to vegetarians/vegans that would be more important and informative.
It would also have been nice to see more updated information on fad diets such as Atkins or South Beach with respect to health issues. Or even more recent scientific studies throughout the book would contribute significantly to the reading.
Since the 2004 edition is just coming out, if you can pick up a cheap copy of this edition it is well worth the investment.
A Book Meant to Be Spit Out
Francis Bacon said that some books are meant to be chewed, some swallowed, and some digested. This book is meant to be spit out.
I recently returned to the college classroom as a student of Human Anatomy and of Nutrition (preparing for entrance into a nursing program). For those classes I read, respectively, Marieb's "Human Anatomy and Physiology" and Whitney's "Understanding Nutrition." The contrast between these two widely-used textbooks could not be greater. The one is clearly written, lucidly organized, and filled with revealing graphics; the other is horribly opaque, repetitive and senseless in organization, and replete with distracting charts and photos.
Comparisons are odious, so I will just amplify my main points and have done. This book reads as though written by someone who is more anxious to prove the scientific merit of her field or her own expertise in the latest research than by someone interested in helping the reader understand major concepts for further study. Virtually every paragraph has the main point--if there is one--obscured somewhere in the fourth sentence, with irrelevant detail draped around it, so that the reader is forced to do the work the writer should have done. You can learn about nutrition by reading this book in spite of the style, not because of it.
The last three or four chapters on nutrition in the life cycle and diet and health repeat what was presented in various places in earlier chapters on digestion and on nutrients. After reading a popular book on nutrition by a professor at Cambridge(Brown's "Energy of Life") that was clear, concise, and not condescending, I inferred that Whitney has succumbed to the disease afflicting many textbook writers: the structure and content are dictated by the editors' anxiety to keep up with the competition rather than by the author's own insight.
On virtually every page, there is a photo, chart, or graphic that distracts or insults the reader's efforts to learn about nutrition. A stray "factoid" about calories crams the margin or a photo of a vegetable pulls the eye away from the discussion. Evidently the editors feel the subject itself is not interesting enough to keep my attention. They're right, when it's presented in such a haphazard and condescending way.
If this book were not used regularly around the nation as a textbook in many courses, it would long ago have disappeared from the market, since no ordinary intelligent person would voluntarily wade through its turgid, repetitive, and insulting bulk. I'm outraged that this book is so expensive and so lousy. I sold my copy on Amazon the instant the course was over (whereas I cherish my copy of Marieb's book and can't wait to read it again). It's a shame, because now I must look for another book on nutrition, one that I can read and gain insight from with pleasure on an important subject.
This is a balanced nutrition textbook that combines the concepts of nutrition with exercise, disease states that are caused by nutrition deficiencies, eating a balanced meal, glycolysis cycle and other concepts. This book also has helpful tables in the inside cover of the book and all throughout the chapters of the book.
What makes this book so good is that it goes beyond a textbook. This book can also be used by any individual looking to find ways to eat healthier, lose weight and exercise. This book goes beyond the expectations of a learning textbook and that is what makes this nutrition textbook so good. Of course its primary use is as a textbook for the professor to teach basic concepts of nutrition to its students but IMHO, it can be used for more than that.
Additonally, this book makes the concepts easy to understand to the point that any person can follow the concepts easy. The infotract CD was also helpful as well.
In all for a book that is primarily focused on the concepts of nutrition, it goes beyond its primary focus. It is a great book. Sometimes I wonder if the officials at Jenny Craig Weight Loss Centers fashion their diet plans by just using this book and charge you a ton on money. With this book anyone can eat more healthy and you won't have to spned a ton of money at Jenny Craig Weight Loss centers to do it.