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Ask HN: What are the best books on health and diet tailored towards students?

3 points by throwAwaaayacc ↗ HN
I'm still in college and only have enough money to get by (exaggerating a bit here), and I'd like to improve my diet. There seems to be plenty of books covering this topic. Yet it also seems to me that most of them aren't tailored towards people with a limited budget and/or are strict on what you should or shouldn't eat (for example gluten free diets etc). So I'd like to ask people here to give me some good suggestions, thanks in advance.

7 comments

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throwaway8879
I just finished reading 'The Obesity Code', 'The Diabetes Code' and 'A Complete Guide to Fasting' by Dr. Jason Fung. I'm on my third week of intermittent-fasting + keto and those books have been full of insights.
mhkool
"Eat Fat Get Thin" by Dr Mark Hyman. The book explains what you need to do get in shape and how to stay in shape. caveat: to be healthy you most likely need to change your lifestyle. Many do not want to change their lifestyle and consequently stay unhealthy.
dontJudge
Don't need a book. Only need 3 sentences.

--Avoid sugary drinks.

--Avoid desert foods like cake, donuts, etc.

--Don't over eat.

Good 2 go 4 life.

gt2
Forgot to add drink lots of water and get exercise.
hackermailman
An interesting book was this geneticist's book 'The Diet Myth' http://www.tim-spector.co.uk/ which is a critical look at nutrition myths such as fish oil supplements though it has low signal to noise ratio, way too many personal stories.

Maybe look at university department pages to see what kind of research they're publishing, or look at at their course offering to read the same material such as: https://online.usc.edu/programs/master-of-science-in-nutriti... they're using the book 'Gropper. Advanced Nutrition & Human Metabolism 7th ed' in some of the courses.

For cheap food I buy shares in a community supported agriculture (CSA) program that delivers food weekly through the season.

SamReidHughes
Reading sounds very smart, don't do it. My advice is to start working out. Not running -- weight lifting or body weight workouts. Find a program and worry solely about following its instructions.

You'll learn quickly about how diet affects your performance and recovery time. And then you'll understand how the food you eat affects your body.