A guide to the sometimes confusing world of modern medicine and health issues.
Not really a guide to attaining a good body, The Good Body Guide by Dr. Carole Hungerford reads like more like a very extensively written case study on the Western world's modern health issues. Dr. Hungerford brings an extremely interesting and educational point of view to matters that span the anthropological, economical, cultural, political, and obviously the medical and biochemical issues that affect the physiological concerns of today. Discussing pharmacology and today's medicinal system and practices, with a look at many of the environmental effects which come into play, makes this book a very complex, sometimes dense, but always enlightening read.
I particularly enjoyed the way Dr. Hungerford managed to pull so many of the human and non-human aspects together when discussing health, which makes one consider the truly broad number of factors coming into play when comprehending health issues, even before trying to solve them. She definitely brings out the complex shape of 'health' today, as well as many of the difficulties modern medical practices face when trying to deal with social health issues. We have become too reliant on the pharmacological sciences to help us solve issues that go much further than simple biochemistry, but Dr. Hungerford has managed to bring out and discuss the many other factors in our daily lives which also affect our state of health. Although at times it was quite difficult to wrap my head around many of the chapters thanks to the dense nature of all things surrounding issues of health, this book is definitely a good resource for all of us trying to get more of a holistic approach to understanding our wellbeing.
