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A review by oceanlistener
Thin Is the New Happy by Valerie Frankel
3.0
This book gets 3 stars just for the author's extremely frank, and often painful, look into her own negative habits and thought processes regarding weight. I could identify embarrassingly well- although I've never been a yo-yo dieter, I've certainly got absurd levels of self-loathing when it comes to weight. Her admissions of focusing on weight in lieu of other, more difficult issues, is revealing as well.
But other than an examination of the American female relationship with appearance (and it doesn't even go that far, since it's only about herself), there isn't much in this book that hasn't been done better elsewhere. Frankel doesn't actually learn to love herself the way she is, or to be more accepting of her appearance- in the end, she just learns a new way to be skinny.
She even says it at the end- being thin is better than being fat.
So, congrats to her for finding out that she's actually a skinny person who had been thwarted by her diets for all these years. Seriously, I'm happy for her. After 30+ years of being chronically unhappy because of 20 pounds, it must come as a relief. However, it doesn't offer anything to the some of the rest of us, who are naturally fat people who would like to either learn to accept that, or learn how to be thin.
Also, nary a word about being healthy, except for a token mention at the end? It's just obsession over appearance, which makes me at least feel better for not being *that* shallow!
But other than an examination of the American female relationship with appearance (and it doesn't even go that far, since it's only about herself), there isn't much in this book that hasn't been done better elsewhere. Frankel doesn't actually learn to love herself the way she is, or to be more accepting of her appearance- in the end, she just learns a new way to be skinny.
She even says it at the end- being thin is better than being fat.
So, congrats to her for finding out that she's actually a skinny person who had been thwarted by her diets for all these years. Seriously, I'm happy for her. After 30+ years of being chronically unhappy because of 20 pounds, it must come as a relief. However, it doesn't offer anything to the some of the rest of us, who are naturally fat people who would like to either learn to accept that, or learn how to be thin.
Also, nary a word about being healthy, except for a token mention at the end? It's just obsession over appearance, which makes me at least feel better for not being *that* shallow!