Consumer Health 2006: Fads Begone!

Realistic approaches to health burn up the market

By Elizabeth Williams with Raya Kuzyk -- Library Journal, 5/1/2006

Consumers are unhealthy, emotionally needy, addicted to sugar and the Internet, and continue to suffer from an assortment of specific health problems. This is the message of consumer health publishing in 2006, and if it sounds a little depressing, at least it’s a more accurate reflection of reality. Delusions of perfect patients and instant weight loss are gone. Perhaps in reaction to too many past promises that have failed to pan out, consumers want to be treated as whole people, warts and all, and forthcoming consumer health releases are ready to see them now. Welcome to 2006, the year of common sense.

Bare necessity

It’s no surprise that the expanding American waistline is correlating to a growing need for health information. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity contributes to an increased risk for hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and some cancers. And though general medical books that list 100 different disorders may be handy for ready-reference, they often don’t provide enough information on any one specific disorder. Donna Alexander, medical librarian at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, Reno, NV, observes patients and family members looking for sources encompassing everything about one topic, a one-stop shop of sorts on what she calls “top ten” issues, e.g., smoking cessation, weight loss, depression, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, heart disease, cancer, stroke, and hypertension.

As common as these diseases are, the increasing number of people being diagnosed with them has necessitated more medical investigation. Several health resources are heeding the call, homing in on specific grievances. Come October and following last year’s 30th-anniversary edition of the classic Our Bodies, Ourselves, Simon & Schuster will be publishing Vivian Pinn’s Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause. And in early 2007, Rodale will be issuing The Prevention Revolution: The Crisis of Cardiac Care and How You Can Prevent a Heart Attack or Stroke, by Arthur Agatston of South Beach Diet fame.

Marsha Sullivan, supervisory librarian at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX, says she’s noticed a huge upswing in newly diagnosed cases of diabetes in particular. Indeed, a study by the National Center for Health Statistics shows that there has been a slow but steady increase in the prevalence of diagnosed adult diabetes in the United States, from 5.1 percent in 1997 to 7.4 percent in 2005. The publishing landscape reflects that rise. Sterling will print The AARP Guide to Living with Diabetes in July; in August, Bantam will release American Diabetes Association Complete Guide to Diabetes; and in September, Wiley will publish The American Medical Association’s Guide to Living with Diabetes.

“Those who’ve been recently diagnosed with diabetes,” says Chris Vaccari, Sterling’s director of library and special marketing, “may feel scared, confused, and full of questions. These books answer that.”

The emotional reader

Specificity aside, these books also invite readers to examine all aspects of their lives affecting health. This includes an emotional component that Jacqueline Wehmueller, executive editor at Johns Hopkins University Press, describes as “validating.” She believes that emotional responses, perhaps to an illness in the family, are what drive many readers to seek out material in the first place. Collins Wellness & Lifestyle VP and publisher Mary Ellen O’Neill has noticed that “health books are being presented with a lighter touch” to reach readers in a more humanistic way. The recent best sellers You: The Owner’s Manual, by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet Oz, and Why Do Men Have Nipples? by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, exemplify this approach.

Taking themselves less seriously and addressing emotional components, authors draw consumers in by saying, “You’re not alone—look at me.” Consider 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet: Because We’re All in It Together (St. Martin’s, May), by siblings Suzanne, Jennifer, and Amy Barnett; the graphic autobiography Fat Free: The All-True Adventures of a Supersize Woman, penned by Jude Milner and illustrated by a Marvel Comics artist (Tarcher, June); and Cancer Vixen: A True Story (Knopf, September), Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s Sex in the City–style portrait of her battle with breast cancer.

Liz Perl, VP and publisher at Rodale, says she’s seeing a lot more of these kinds of “chick-lit approaches to women’s health, something sassy and less serious—a girlfriend’s guide.”

Health books that tap into this sense of in-it-togetherness invite the reader to join a community, meeting the emotional desire for acceptance, empathy, and companionship.

Make the Internet an ally

Speaking of community, health publishers are repeatedly indicating the need for a new approach to Internet resources. Collins’s O’Neill notes that books that evolve from authors’ web sites and blogs have the benefit of a built-in audience; likewise, new readers may be lured by the promise of supplementary online information. Some publishers are taking that to heart, using the Internet to offer extra benefits to those who buy their books.

In the case of its Hollywood Trainer Complete Weight Loss Plan (September), for example, Putnam will suggest that readers visit author Jeanette Jenkins’s web site, not only to access additional motivational tips but also to download forms that will help them track their progress.

“There is value in making a link from a book to the Internet,” says Penguin/Perigee publisher John Duff, who was pleasantly surprised to discover that the addition of a CD with web site links improved sales for Perigee’s fifth edition of The Complete Guide to Symptoms, Illness and Surgery (March), by H. Winter Griffith. If that’s the case, then Pearson Technology Group imprint QUE is on the right track with Sandy Berger’s Great Age Guide to Online Health & Wellness (May), which, according to the book’s press material, is “written specifically for those adults 50-plus living with and using their computers and the Internet to help take better care of themselves.”

The Internet does not have to affect the book business adversely. In fact, online information can create demand for new books on very specific topics that publishers may not have previously thought were big enough to market. As Johns Hopkins’s Wehmueller says, “The Internet has made it easier to bring to the fore diseases that have been overlooked.” And while patients may enjoy the online community, they also want something in hand to refer to or take to the doctor’s office—something, perhaps, more official than a crumpled printout. Hospital librarians Sullivan and Alexander both say they will continue to turn to the Internet for quick, reliable information, but specific, authoritative books with more frequent updates will help supplement their needs.

The online health explosion has also increased the demand for revised editions. The Internet allows people to see just how quickly the rules of medicine change—what printed health book these days isn’t issued with the warning that online resources mentioned within may become outdated even as soon as the book hits shelves? Publishers are more cognizant of having to keep up with the demand for books containing the latest research. Johns Hopkins, for one, is releasing five newly revised editions this year, an increase over previous years.

Is common sense back?

Large consumer health publishers don’t see any decrease in the demand for diet and exercise books. Putnam offered up Seth Roberts’s The Shangri-La Diet in April, and Wiley, which released Fred Pescatore’s The Hamptons Diet Cookbook the same month, will be issuing Dr. Stephen Sinatra’s The Fast Food Diet in August. Obviously, American consumers are still willing to try the latest fad diet. But Wiley’s Miller sees the newest one as being the “undiet,” a movement he believes started with books like Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat (Knopf) and has blossomed into a field of food and nutrition books espousing less fad-based and more quality health information.

Megan Newman, publisher at Avery, which this month is coming out with Steven A. Schnur’s fiber-friendly The Reality Diet, agrees. “So many people have weight problems as well as health problems, that we can’t keep demonizing food groups,” she says. Brenda Watson’s The High Carbohydrate Weight Loss Plan (Renew Life Pr., May) is a case in point.

More than one publisher indicated that the magic bullet is gone, and consumers are finally willing to hear that there is no one miraculous food that will end all their weight troubles. Rob Meadows, director of sales and marketing, Inner Traditions, says that these days, “if you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it for real.” And not piecemeal, either. Rodale’s Perl and Deb Brody, senior editor, McGraw-Hill, agree that the mind/body holistic approach is gaining popularity. “People are looking at things holistically, taking in the big picture,” says Brody. Meadows cites Thom Hartmann’s Walking Your Blues Away (October), about how bilateral movements relate to both hemispheres of the brain, as an example of a book that speaks to both mind and body. “There’s a return to what holistic really means—to really thinking of the body as a whole,” he says.

Party like you’re 99

With 40 being the new 30, 50 being the new 40, and so on ad nauseam, consumers are regarding their upcoming years with less trepidation than anticipation. Books like Gary W. Small’s The Longevity Bible (Hyperion, June) and Maoshing Ni’s Secrets of Longevity: Hundreds of Ways To Live To Be 100 (Chronicle, June) should help pave the road ahead. Mikhail Tombak’s Can We Live 150 Years? (Healthy Life Pr., July) is impressively more optimistic.

Meanwhile, the choices for books on pregnancy proliferate, with realism rearing its ugly head. Jackie Keller’s Body After Baby (Avery, May), for example, will target not just those women who recently gave birth but those who had a baby a year ago, have been overwhelmed, and are now just getting around to thinking about their own health. And because we don’t all give birth at a svelte size six, Cornelia Van Der Ziel and Jacqueline Tourville’s Big, Beautiful & Pregnant (Marlowe & Co., May) and Mother Love’s Half the Mother, Twice the Love (Atria, October) serve up more satisfying portions of pregnancy know-how.

Authoritative alternatives

Tom Miller, executive editor of general interest books at Wiley, says he sees a trend toward creating books from a strong authority familiar to consumers. Sure, Kevin Trudeau’s controversial best seller, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You To Know About, is expecting a follow-up in May, More Natural Cures Revealed: Previously Censored Brand Name Products That Cure Disease (Alliance). Still, McGraw-Hill’s Brody thinks that, Trudeau aside (“there are exceptions to every rule”), “consumers are becoming more educated and are looking at things in a more discriminatory light.” Noreen Henson, marketing manager at Demos Publishing, also notices she’s fielding the needs of “more sophisticated health consumers” who are looking for authoritative information one can trust.

What will this mean?

So how will publishers’ offerings affect librarians and their patrons? Certainly, there will be a continued need for information on Alexander’s “top ten” topics; smaller libraries may have a hard time keeping up with the purchase of all those individual titles, however. Books with emotional components and humor should continue to be popular. Diet and exercise titles, too, though librarians who have cringed in the past at handing patrons fad diet books should be happier with the trend toward realistic diets and authoritative works. Not only are we living longer, healthier lives, we’re younger than we ever thought we were. Enjoy the output while it lasts. We all know how poorly trends age.