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| Understanding Nutrition | 
 enlarge | Authors: Ellie Whitney, Sharon Rady Rolfes
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
Discount Category: Book
Selling Price: $149.95
Buy Used: $80.00
Potential Savings: $69.95 (47%)
New (35) Used (166) from $80.00
Customer Ratings:  29 comments
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 11
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 720
Shipping Weight (pounds): 4.7
Dimensions (inch): 11.1 x 9.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0495116696
Dewey Decimal Number: 613
EAN: 9780495116691
Publication Date: April 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Comments:
 fairly comprehensive, but very basic April 13, 2006
18 out of 21 found this comment useful.
My comments are applicable to the instructor's edition of this book, 10th edition.
I have been studying nutrition and health on my own for years. I picked up this book so that I could have one comprehensive resource. Apparently I would have been better to find a book written for a higher-level course or for graduate school.
This book contained no new information from my perspective. For example, I was disappointed that the book only devoted 4 pages to vegetarian diets. Obviously, it is impossible to cover all aspects of the various types of vegetarian diets in 4 pages.
If you are looking for a book that covers the basics of nutrition this is a decent resource. If you have a resonable understanding of nutrition I would recommend passing on this book. When I locate a more comprehensive and detailed nutrition reference guide I will post an update to this review.
 Very Good February 24, 2006
2 out of 3 found this comment useful.
The book is very good and informative. Even though I bought this book for my nutrition class, even after I have completed the class, I plan to keep the book. It will make a very good addition to my library of medical books.
Nutrition Review. January 30, 2006
0 out of 18 found this comment useful.
Book is in great shape. Was delivered very promptly! Thanks so much.
 A Book Meant to Be Spit Out August 14, 2005
30 out of 46 found this comment useful.
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.
NO CD ROM IN 9TH EDITION January 4, 2005
9 out of 11 found this comment useful.
I just received this book today. I got the ninth edition which is what I ordered. Unfortunately, Amazon has a review for the 10th edition on the 9th edition page. I didn't read carefully enough and therefore received no CD ROM. The book seems to be very nice, but I do feel ripped off because I expected the CD ROM. Just wanted to warn others!
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