wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

You might want to think twice about super sizing that value meal. Recent studies have shown that 61 percent of Americans are overweight and 26 percent are obese. Greg Critser examines the social and economic factors that have led to America’s struggle with obesity in his book Fat land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World. Michael Kun with his novel about star worshipping and one man's obsession with actress Heather Locklear, The Locklear Letters. And Stephen Eliot chronicles his formative years spent in the University of Chicago’s Sonia Shankman Orthogenic school, then run by controversial psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim, known for his unorthodox and often cruel mental treatment.