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bookph1le's review against another edition
5.0
Part memoir and part sanity check for people who, like me, have stewed in diet culture (now rebranded as wellness culture!) for far too long. Sole-Smith writes so movingly of the harrowing trauma of navigating her daughter's heart condition and the eating issues that followed her surgeries. In trying various methods to help her daughter learn how to eat again, Sole-Smith began to see connections to the ways in which our obsession with weight and our assigning morality to food has compromised Americans' abilities to remain in tune with their own eating instincts.
This book is wide ranging and very thought-provoking. Though I've been on this journey to undo all the damage years of dieting and diet culture have done to me for some time now, this book still helped me to gain a new perspective on my own relationship to food. I appreciated the ways in which she points out the intersection of diet culture and chronic illness and food insecurity, because all of these things are inextricably entwined. Our insistence that eating the right foods can protect us from illness--new flash, they can't--is tied up in our belief that fatness is a moral failing rather than a complex issue driven by many factors. Sole-Smith highlights research that shows how complex this issue is, and does so in a way that's accessible and understandable.
Her writing is also just plain fantastic. She has such empathy for the people she interviews and has such a nuanced view of health and diet culture. Anyone looking to try to break free of the hold diet and wellness culture exerts over all of us would do well to include this book in their repertoire.
This book is wide ranging and very thought-provoking. Though I've been on this journey to undo all the damage years of dieting and diet culture have done to me for some time now, this book still helped me to gain a new perspective on my own relationship to food. I appreciated the ways in which she points out the intersection of diet culture and chronic illness and food insecurity, because all of these things are inextricably entwined. Our insistence that eating the right foods can protect us from illness--new flash, they can't--is tied up in our belief that fatness is a moral failing rather than a complex issue driven by many factors. Sole-Smith highlights research that shows how complex this issue is, and does so in a way that's accessible and understandable.
Her writing is also just plain fantastic. She has such empathy for the people she interviews and has such a nuanced view of health and diet culture. Anyone looking to try to break free of the hold diet and wellness culture exerts over all of us would do well to include this book in their repertoire.
sara_shocks's review against another edition
5.0
So informative, nuanced & compassionate--strongly recommend reading this, especially if you spend any time around children as they learn to eat (or not to eat).
montigneyrules's review against another edition
3.0
#readingchallenge2023 (my book with a body positive message)
Not quite what I expected, definitely a mislabeled title, but an interesting read.
Having a complicated relationship with body image & its impact on my ‘food experiences’ I looked forward to reading insights on eating instincts. I looked forward to feeling ‘not alone’ as I read more about society’s convoluted influence of food, diet, and health attitudes, but the book was a bit more personal than largely wise-spread cultural analysis. While the author discussed interesting (&some new to me) topics, a lot of the narratives were central to an extreme and/or specific situation losing the universality needed to feel engaged.
There was a wide breadth of topics, but the writing style wasn’t overall engaging, as if maybe she took on one too many topics, glossed over some with anecdotes where she needed more illuminating discussion (with facts/numbers)-it was all a bit too internal because the topics were too complex to take on in a larger cultural impact.
There were some helpful takeaways, such as the portion on discussing ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ food and how to reframe the mindset-
There were also some triggering takeaways, such as the portion on traumatic motherhood & food issues- i.e the chapters on pregnancy & pressures of eating, new body image, and woes of breastfeeding- again not what I expected in the novel, but interesting.
Overall, again the breadth of topics were fascinating, but I found myself having to take the ideas addressed and find additional research and insights outside the novel. Though I look forward to the author’s next book, as there is again promise in the title..
Not quite what I expected, definitely a mislabeled title, but an interesting read.
Having a complicated relationship with body image & its impact on my ‘food experiences’ I looked forward to reading insights on eating instincts. I looked forward to feeling ‘not alone’ as I read more about society’s convoluted influence of food, diet, and health attitudes, but the book was a bit more personal than largely wise-spread cultural analysis. While the author discussed interesting (&some new to me) topics, a lot of the narratives were central to an extreme and/or specific situation losing the universality needed to feel engaged.
There was a wide breadth of topics, but the writing style wasn’t overall engaging, as if maybe she took on one too many topics, glossed over some with anecdotes where she needed more illuminating discussion (with facts/numbers)-it was all a bit too internal because the topics were too complex to take on in a larger cultural impact.
There were some helpful takeaways, such as the portion on discussing ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ food and how to reframe the mindset-
There were also some triggering takeaways, such as the portion on traumatic motherhood & food issues- i.e the chapters on pregnancy & pressures of eating, new body image, and woes of breastfeeding- again not what I expected in the novel, but interesting.
Overall, again the breadth of topics were fascinating, but I found myself having to take the ideas addressed and find additional research and insights outside the novel. Though I look forward to the author’s next book, as there is again promise in the title..
corvingreene's review against another edition
5.0
What a necessary book! Sole-Smith tackles so many different aspects of food culture in the US, and her multiple points of entry into the issue offer a very nuanced picture of the topic, from infant feeding to eating disorders. I loved how she was able to make what could have been a dry topic come alive and read as engaging as a novel. I have a lot of thoughts on this book, and it definitely requires a trigger warning if you are someone dealing with food and weight issues yourself, but I appreciated Sole-Smith's overwhelmingly body positive and intuitive eating approach to the topic, and I highly recommend this book! It would be a great one to teach, as it's easier to read than some more scientific texts, and I can see it also functioning as a good example for students of how to incorporate research and interviews into their own texts.
disnelyse's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Medical content, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Vomit and Fatphobia
Minor: Body shaming, Ableism, and Racism
j45rpm's review against another edition
2.0
I found this book disappointing--the chapters do not form a cohesive work (it comes across as more of a collection of short non-fiction pieces); and Sole-Smith seems to focus on extreme examples rather than a holistic/overall look at what the title promised (food culture, body image, and guilt in America).
jn0el's review against another edition
4.0
I appreciate this book a lot. As a childcare provider and human in ED recovery, it was meaningful to learn about these eating experiences. I do with she hasn't used the word ob**e without more explanation of how problematic the BMI is.