Book Review: Drop Dead Healthy

Some people like to set modest, achievable goals. Others strive for perfection. A.J. Jacobs wants nothing less than to be the healthiest man alive. His book “Drop Dead Healthy” chronicles more than two years in the New Yorker author’s quest to improve his physique and to get rid of the “python that ate a goat” body.

Jacobs is a very funny writer and the book is a pleasant and, despite its more than 300 pages, quick read. Body part by body part, the reader is taken on a tour as the author talks with experts, fitness junkies and cavemen, all of whom give him interesting, albeit sometimes conflicting, advice. Even though the book’s subject matter is interesting and the author is clearly talented, I was disappointed by his, in my opinion, unsystematic approach. In a note, it is made clear, that Jacobs is not a doctor and one should be consulted before following any tips from the book. It is a popular science and not an academic book, still, at some times, I was annoyed, because his experiments seem to be selected more on the basis of what is interesting to write about (e.g. wearing a helmet as a pedestrian) than what is optimal (I would have liked more information on different weightlifting plans). Maybe my diet of peer-reviewed articles is reducing my enjoyment of normal books. The second thing that I found disappointing is that he doesn’t seem to collect any data for statistical analysis. He buys a Zeo, a sleep monitor that measures sleep stages, and doesn’t seem to use it for anything except looking at the composite score it outputs for a week, before abandoning the gadget. Spending a couple of weeks out of the two years learning R could have added a lot of value here.

Nevertheless, there were still some things that were surprising to me, some of which I want to experiment with in my daily life. Here is a short excerpt of what I noted down: