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kittycat2302's review against another edition
5.0
This book took me forever to finish through no fault of its own. Terrific, comprehensive resource for the Health at Every Size approach to treating BED. Highly recommend for fellow practitioners and anyone interested in learning more.
amyelaine's review against another edition
4.0
Beyond a Shadow of A Diet is an incredibly well written book by two clinical social workers that helps therapists understand the connection between eating disorders, disordered eating, and diet culture.
The writers do an excellent job of educating therapists that dieting is not a solution to binge and compulsive eating, but rather the cause. It is the treatment team’s job to help patients return to attuned (aka intuitive) eating in order to help patients heal their relationship with food.
The book contains a lot of excellent evidence as to why diets don’t work and are actually harmful.
It also encourages therapists to examine their own biases about food and bodies and how that might affect the service they provide to folks with eating disorders.
They sum up their approach nicely by explaining “this approach is based on research validating the fact that diets do not work, that people naturally come in different shapes and sizes, and that the Health at Every Size paradigm, along with the attuned eating model, gives clients a means to attain optional health and develop a healthy relationship with food”.
Of note, in their chapter on social justice, they mention that Michigan is the only state with legislation making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of height and weight, and there are only 6 cities in the US where this discrimination is also illegal: San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Washington DC. Madison Wisconsin, Urban, IL and Binghamptom, NY. I was both dismayed that the numbers are so low and overjoyed that Madison is included as that is where I live!
The writers do an excellent job of educating therapists that dieting is not a solution to binge and compulsive eating, but rather the cause. It is the treatment team’s job to help patients return to attuned (aka intuitive) eating in order to help patients heal their relationship with food.
The book contains a lot of excellent evidence as to why diets don’t work and are actually harmful.
It also encourages therapists to examine their own biases about food and bodies and how that might affect the service they provide to folks with eating disorders.
They sum up their approach nicely by explaining “this approach is based on research validating the fact that diets do not work, that people naturally come in different shapes and sizes, and that the Health at Every Size paradigm, along with the attuned eating model, gives clients a means to attain optional health and develop a healthy relationship with food”.
Of note, in their chapter on social justice, they mention that Michigan is the only state with legislation making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of height and weight, and there are only 6 cities in the US where this discrimination is also illegal: San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Washington DC. Madison Wisconsin, Urban, IL and Binghamptom, NY. I was both dismayed that the numbers are so low and overjoyed that Madison is included as that is where I live!
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