Books: The Pioppi Diet: A 21-Day Lifestyle Plan

This is not just a diet book; it’s a healthcare manifesto.

Both my parents are Maltese, and although I have spent the vast majority of my life outside Malta I return on a frequent basis to visit my elderly mother. At 87 years old and despite recent falls she is still going strong. She enjoys playing bridge and taking the sea air. She comes from a long line of women in her family who have lived well into their 90s. I am not sure the same is going to be said of the next generation on this tiny, beautiful Mediterranean island. Malta leads the European obesity tables according to the World Health Organization report of 2015 and obesity is the major public health problem facing this island.¹ The problem does not just lie with adults though; nearly 40% of all children are overweight or obese.² So, despite being in the heart of the Mediterranean, the people do not practise what they preach; no longer are they eating a diet rich in olive oil, fish, vegetables, and fruit. Instead, it’s more likely to be fast food, fizzy drinks, pastizzi (a traditional savoury pastry filled with ricotta or mushy peas), or my childhood favourite, deep-fried pastry covered with sugar. A short hop across the Mediterranean is a small southern Italian village, Pioppi, which is the subject of perhaps one of the most jargon-free, informative, and game-changing books on health I have ever read.

The Pioppi Diet written jointly by a London-based cardiologist and an ex-Northern Irish international athlete and documentary film-maker, Donal O’Neill, marries the secrets of the world’s healthiest village with the latest cutting-edge medical, nutritional, and exercise science to bust many myths prevalent in today’s weight loss and health industries.

The book explores, using examples drawn from the 200 or so residents of Pioppi (whose longevity is ascribed to their healthy diet), why we are all getting fatter. This is not simply down to the food industry, nor to declining levels of exercise, but to the complex, interrelating factors linked to our relationship with food, diet, and health. Included in this is the confusing and conflicting messages we get around nutrition, especially on sugar and fat, and why our obsession with lowering cholesterol — as if this was the end in itself — has paradoxically made our health worse.

The book is not just a guide for individuals to rapidly improve their health from making simple lifestyle changes but also explains why policy changes to improve the food environment and our dependence on medicines also needs to happen. In addition, a revision of dietary guidelines is required to reverse the UK’s obesity epidemic and sustain the NHS.

Professor Dame Sue Bailey, the Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, has described the book as a ‘must have for every household and a must read for every medical student and doctor’ — I couldn’t agree more.

• © British Journal of General Practice 2017