Eating for Two

Diet books are big business. Diet books written by scientists, even more so. Diet books written by scientists that purport to help women get pregnant? A potentially unbeatable publishing trifecta—so get ready for the publicity circus (and endless daytime TV appearances) that will surely trumpet the arrival of The Fertility Diet, a straddling of scholarship and self-help from Walter Willett, the 62-year-old chairman of the Harvard School of Public Health’s nutrition department.

“Evolution has put in place nutritional hurdles a woman must overcome to get pregnant,” says Willett. In the book, which is based on Willett’s 18-year survey of 18,000 women nurses, he offers 10 dietary guidelines he claims will notably increase a would-be mom’s ability to get around those obstacles. Many of the prescriptions—maintaining a healthy weight, refraining from overdoing it with alcohol—aren’t particularly surprising, but one is downright liberating: To boost your odds of warming a bun in the oven, the doctor advises, treat yourself to a dish of full-fat ice cream every day. So a bowl of joy can lead to a bundle of it? There’s an easy sell.