"The bestselling author of Lost Connections and Stolen Focus offers a revelatory look at the new drugs transforming weight loss as we know it-from his personal experience on Ozempic to our ability to heal our society's dysfunctional relationship with food, weight, and our bodies"--
"The bestselling author of Lost Connections and Stolen Focus offers a revelatory look at the new drugs transforming weight loss as we know it-from his personal experience on Ozempic to our ability to heal our society's dysfunctional relationship with food, weight, and our bodies"--
The bestselling author of Lost Connections and Stolen Focus offers a revelatory look at the new drugs transforming weight loss as we know itโfrom his personal experience on Ozempic to our ability to heal our societyโs dysfunctional relationship with food, weight, and our bodies.
In January 2023, Johann Hari started to inject himself once a week with Ozempic, one of the new drugs that produces significant weight loss. He wasnโt aloneโsome predictions suggest that in a few years, a quarter of the U.S. population will be taking these drugs. While around 80 percent of diets fail, someone taking one of the new drugs will lose up to a quarter of their body weight in six months. To the drugsโ defenders, here is a moment of liberation from a condition that massively increases your chances of diabetes, cancer, and an early death.ย
Still, Hari was wildly conflicted. Can these drugs really be as good as they sound? Are they a magic solutionโor a magic trick? Finding the answer to this high-stakes question led him on a journey from Iceland to Minneapolis to Tokyo, and to interview the leading experts in the world on these questions. He found that along with the drugโs massive benefits come twelve significant potential risks.ย
He also found that these drugs radically challenge what we think we know about shame, willpower, and healing. What do they reveal about the nature of obesity itself? What psychological issues begin to emerge when our eating patterns are suddenly disrupted? Are the drugs a liberation or a further symptom of our deeply dysfunctional relationship with food?ย
These drugs are about to change our world, for better and for worse. Everybody needs to understand how they workโscientifically, emotionally, and culturally. Magic Pill is an essential guide to the revolution that has already begun, and which one leading expert argues will be as transformative as the invention of the smartphone.
โCompelling, thoughtful and fascinating, a revealing and inspiring meditation on weight loss, addiction, and the new drugs that may change the way we think about and treat obesity.โโMaia Szalavitz, author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog
โMagic Pill may be the most revolutionary, honest and important book you read about weight loss, the body and food. As is always the case with a Johann Hari book, what appears to be a story about the drug,ย Ozempic turns out to be aย portal into the deepest investigation and revelation on how to live a healthy life.โโV (Formerly Eve Ensler), The Vagina Monologues, Reckoning
โA deep-dive into Ozempicย couldnโt be more timelyโand necessaryโto get the full scope of how and why everyone is suddenly skinny!โโAndy Cohen
โHari isย excellentย on the booming ultra-processed food industry and the science of addiction that drives it. . . . Magic Pill isย a wonderfully accessible exploration of one of the most complex problems of our age. Hari highlights the risks of the new drugs, but also their benefits.โโThe Telegraph (UK)
โA fast paced andย fascinatingย dive into an extremely sensitive topic, written byย a charismatic and compulsively readable author.โโDan Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of 10% Happier
โMagic Pill isย a fascinating explorationย of weight-loss pharmaceuticals that will redefine our approach to obesity. From his own journey with Ozempic, to a global investigation spanning Iceland to Tokyo, Hari delves into the transformative potentialโand concernsโsurrounding these drugs.โโCharles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators
โWith the intense interest in the new miracle weight-loss drugs, we need a balanced look at their promise and peril.ย Entertaining and highly-readable, Johann Hariโs Magic Pill delivers the information people need to help make a medical decision that might change their future.โโArthur C. Brooks, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and #1 New York Times bestselling author
โEntertaining without trivializingย andย deeply informative without being prescriptive, this bookย leaves us with much to ponder, both on the individual and social levels.โโGabor Matรฉ, MD, bestselling author of The Myth of Normal
โIn Magic Pill, Johann Hari gives us a crash course on the new weight-loss drugs that will soon be transforming bodies, minds, and societies on a massive scale. Magic Pill will help you think more clearly about eating, dieting, health, and mental health, even if you never touch Ozempic.โโJonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind
โInformative, lively . . . A terrific readย for anyone curious about or considering using these remarkable medications.โโBooklist (starred review)
โ[A] levelheaded analysis. . . . One of the first books about the Ozempic age, thisย sets a high bar for those to follow.โโPublishers Weekly
Johann Hari is a writer and journalist. He has written for The New York Times, Le Monde, The Guardian, and other newspapers. His TED Talks have been viewed over 70 million times, and his work has been praised by a broad range of people, from Oprah Winfrey to Noam Chomsky to Joe Rogan. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream, Lost Connections, and Stolen Focus.
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