Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
95 reviews
katharina90's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
This book doesn't contain any new ideas but I can see how the content could be helpful for folks who struggle with their habitual behaviors.
The information is presented in a fairly approachable way and isn't repetitive. Unfortunately the author's tone and examples at times are insensitive, judgmental or just... off.
Suggested strategies for developing new habits include utilizing feedback loops, habit stacking, visual cues, temptation bundling, short-term rewards, habit tracking and accountability partners.
The information is presented in a fairly approachable way and isn't repetitive. Unfortunately the author's tone and examples at times are insensitive, judgmental or just... off.
Suggested strategies for developing new habits include utilizing feedback loops, habit stacking, visual cues, temptation bundling, short-term rewards, habit tracking and accountability partners.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism and Fatphobia
anna_hepworth's review
With a good edit and a better set of examples, this would have been a good book. As it was I felt more and more uncomfortable with each weirdly judgemental example that just showed that the author has had a surprisingly priviledged life. Very prosperity gospel and moral judgements on things like eating and exercise.
I ran out of time on the library loan, and I don't think I'll bother with trying to finish it. There have to be better books on developing and maintaining habits out there.
--------
Adding my reading notes:
Prologue - yeah, interesting
Ch 1 - kind of good, but the weight loss stuff is going to piss me off
Ch 2 - better to make identity goals rather than outcome goals, because they are easier to maintain. So, 'I want to run 10km' becomes 'I want to be a runner' which becomes the atomic habit which presumably we get later
Nitpick on the weight loss / health thing; need to watch out for that as an unhelpful conflation.
Ch 3 - building better habits. more science (this is a feature of this book). However, also a frustrating conflation of a couple of ideas:
I ran out of time on the library loan, and I don't think I'll bother with trying to finish it. There have to be better books on developing and maintaining habits out there.
--------
Adding my reading notes:
Prologue - yeah, interesting
Ch 1 - kind of good, but the weight loss stuff is going to piss me off
Ch 2 - better to make identity goals rather than outcome goals, because they are easier to maintain. So, 'I want to run 10km' becomes 'I want to be a runner' which becomes the atomic habit which presumably we get later
Nitpick on the weight loss / health thing; need to watch out for that as an unhelpful conflation.
Ch 3 - building better habits. more science (this is a feature of this book). However, also a frustrating conflation of a couple of ideas:
Without good financial habits, you will always be struggling for the next dollar. Without good health habits, you will always seem to be short on energy
.. as a person who had shit health habits but was absolutely full on in my 20s, and now has reasonably good health habits and shit energy (if we ignore the going to bed issue) that doesn't actually make sense.
The chapter on making bad habits inconvenient or unpleasant in the moment has a whole lot of delayed punishment as the examples, and the whole thing is about quite unpleasant results. This is not something I want to encourage. After all, it talks about fines -- and one of the things that we know is that when library fines are abolished, more late books come back.
CW: fatphobia. Punishment mentality
The chapter on making bad habits inconvenient or unpleasant in the moment has a whole lot of delayed punishment as the examples, and the whole thing is about quite unpleasant results. This is not something I want to encourage. After all, it talks about fines -- and one of the things that we know is that when library fines are abolished, more late books come back.
CW: fatphobia. Punishment mentality
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia
alg's review
slow-paced
2.0
Do not read this book.
I picked this up at the suggestion of my therapist and damn, I hated it. The author is not a scientist or a journalist. He in an “entrepreneur” who has written one book and has successfully marketed it enough to get it on bestseller lists which in turn won him the opportunity to collect checks as a featured speaker at corporate events.
He regurgitates (a few) concepts from behavior scientists and then spends the rest of the chapter trying to illustrate them with inappropriately applied anecdotes. In one chapter he talked about making bad habits unattractive as a tool to break them. His anecdote is a thought experiment proposed by a pacifist that the codes to nuclear weapons be imbedded within an innocent bystander so that the bystander would have to die in order for the president to access the nuclear weapon. So in this case the bad habit being broken would be nuclear holocaust? WTF. That was the example that seemed the most out of hand, but there were plenty of others that I thought were not relevant or were poorly applied.
There are a lot of graphs that he uses as devises to explain his ideas but I don’t believe they are actually sourced from any type of data. Seems weird to include since he postures himself as a “habits expert” despite never having done clinical research.
Losing weight is also used as a common goal to apply his habit building to, which seems especially tone-deaf considering how much research has revealed about obesity’s link to genetics, and the ineffectiveness of diets long term. He rarely ties eating and exercising to the value of being healthy in itself, divorced from weight loss. Clear states in the penultimate chapter “a lack of self-awareness is poison”. Ironic.
Ultimately I found the book mostly unhelpful. Chapter 8 talks about when dopamine is delivered during a feedback loop and that was interesting. Should have been an article. Not 250 pages of fluff.
I picked this up at the suggestion of my therapist and damn, I hated it. The author is not a scientist or a journalist. He in an “entrepreneur” who has written one book and has successfully marketed it enough to get it on bestseller lists which in turn won him the opportunity to collect checks as a featured speaker at corporate events.
He regurgitates (a few) concepts from behavior scientists and then spends the rest of the chapter trying to illustrate them with inappropriately applied anecdotes. In one chapter he talked about making bad habits unattractive as a tool to break them. His anecdote is a thought experiment proposed by a pacifist that the codes to nuclear weapons be imbedded within an innocent bystander so that the bystander would have to die in order for the president to access the nuclear weapon. So in this case the bad habit being broken would be nuclear holocaust? WTF. That was the example that seemed the most out of hand, but there were plenty of others that I thought were not relevant or were poorly applied.
There are a lot of graphs that he uses as devises to explain his ideas but I don’t believe they are actually sourced from any type of data. Seems weird to include since he postures himself as a “habits expert” despite never having done clinical research.
Losing weight is also used as a common goal to apply his habit building to, which seems especially tone-deaf considering how much research has revealed about obesity’s link to genetics, and the ineffectiveness of diets long term. He rarely ties eating and exercising to the value of being healthy in itself, divorced from weight loss. Clear states in the penultimate chapter “a lack of self-awareness is poison”. Ironic.
Ultimately I found the book mostly unhelpful. Chapter 8 talks about when dopamine is delivered during a feedback loop and that was interesting. Should have been an article. Not 250 pages of fluff.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
audreyxine's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
3.0
This book gave amazing and simple advice. It is definitely going to make a change in my life and many others' as well. I especially loved the bit about changing the environment and approaching habits with a nonjudgmental attitude. I think these are great ideas and I'm very hopeful after reading this. I do have a couple nitpicky thoughts though:
You can tell the author is an athlete. There are lots of sports metaphors and references to losing weight. I was not a fan of how losing weight and restricting calories were always referred to as positive goals- it can be reductive and harmful to do this. While the simplicity of this book is a big strength, the world is not always so black and white.
You can tell the author is an athlete. There are lots of sports metaphors and references to losing weight. I was not a fan of how losing weight and restricting calories were always referred to as positive goals- it can be reductive and harmful to do this. While the simplicity of this book is a big strength, the world is not always so black and white.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Injury/Injury detail
abeyshouse's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
3.0
Had LOTSSS of fatphobic, weight loss examples and content, would’ve loved this book soooo much more if it didn’t but some good points were definitely made
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
patiencekerr's review
I didn’t finish the book because I found the information quite repetitive. Witch I guess is the point considering the content. I also found the a lot of his views are fairly conservative and very fatphobic. Does getting up at 5am stretching and mediating going to make me a better person; a successful person? I don’t think so.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia
kae_h's review
informative
medium-paced
2.5
This book has good information regarding how to form or break habits. However it is preoccupied with weight, the idea of 'junk food' and includes examples that are pretty white saviour-y.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
cheerfully_chaotic_leo's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism and Fatphobia
kathlyn's review against another edition
2.75
I agreed with some of the central ideas of this book and thought a lot of the advice was helpful, but I also thought a lot of it veered to close to bio-hacking/“do this one easy thing and change your life.” You aren’t going to transform your life by choosing a gym that’s on your route home for work. I also did not like the constant inclusion of weight loss, calorie counting, dieting, etc. Many mentions of those topics were blatantly fatphobic or promoted disordered eating. I think “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Devon Price is a much better version of this kind of self-help book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder and Fatphobia