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A review by lis_perrin
What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety by Cole Kazdin
4.0
Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for this audio arc in exchange for an honest review.
Let me start this review off by saying, this should be a required reading for all. It touches on so many issues that I never would have considered attributing to disordered eating, which is my own oblivious privilege, but hearing them put into this context OF COURSE it aids to eating disorders. Systemic issues and oppressive settings are going to impact every day life including how you eat and what. Having a history of an eating disorder, especially an untreated one which most are, can lead to numerous different health issues through your lifetime. We as a society need to spend more time and money focusing on how to help heal and improve lives disrupted by eating disorders because it is a bigger issue than we are making it out to be.
As someone who identifies as a woman I have had a tricky relationship with food and my body basically my entire life. After reading this book and keeping my own mental issues as well as those that are generational in mind—I realized yes society depiction of women and food is the issue but it isn’t solely to blame here. My depression and anxiety also play a key role in my relationship to food. With eating disorders not having as much research as other health issues it makes sense that it took me almost 30 years to realize my depression impacts my relationship with food just as much as diet culture does. I am someone who healthily got out of an eating disorder and whose CBT and antidepressants are a GODSEND, but I am one of the privileged lucky ones. My ED never went far enough to cause physical harm, but the mental harm took years of undoing. We must do better by our minds and our bodies.
Please read this book!
Let me start this review off by saying, this should be a required reading for all. It touches on so many issues that I never would have considered attributing to disordered eating, which is my own oblivious privilege, but hearing them put into this context OF COURSE it aids to eating disorders. Systemic issues and oppressive settings are going to impact every day life including how you eat and what. Having a history of an eating disorder, especially an untreated one which most are, can lead to numerous different health issues through your lifetime. We as a society need to spend more time and money focusing on how to help heal and improve lives disrupted by eating disorders because it is a bigger issue than we are making it out to be.
As someone who identifies as a woman I have had a tricky relationship with food and my body basically my entire life. After reading this book and keeping my own mental issues as well as those that are generational in mind—I realized yes society depiction of women and food is the issue but it isn’t solely to blame here. My depression and anxiety also play a key role in my relationship to food. With eating disorders not having as much research as other health issues it makes sense that it took me almost 30 years to realize my depression impacts my relationship with food just as much as diet culture does. I am someone who healthily got out of an eating disorder and whose CBT and antidepressants are a GODSEND, but I am one of the privileged lucky ones. My ED never went far enough to cause physical harm, but the mental harm took years of undoing. We must do better by our minds and our bodies.
Please read this book!