A review by dkmons
What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety by Cole Kazdin

challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

This book is all about the reality of recovery & relapse in eating disorders, and what it’s like from a firsthand experience attempting to go through recovery. I received an ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What's Eating Us by Cole Kazdin is a well-balanced mix of journalistic-style, research-based writing, the author’s journey of battling an eating disorder and her recovery journey. We watch her as she struggles with her disorder and searches for innovative, yet evidence-based tools for recovery.

I’m a dietitian who specializes in working with women with disordered eating, body image issues, and chronic health conditions. Big disclaimer here: I would not recommend this to someone with a current ED, or someone who is in the early stages of recovery from ED, because the descriptions of certain behaviors and thoughts throughout the book would be triggering. However, I think this is a fantastic book recommendation for anyone else who struggles with body image issues, chronic dieting, or their relationship with food in any way. In particular, I think a lot of health practitioners would benefit from reading this book. It clearly delineates how our culture’s ‘health’, fatphobia, and food biases show up in different fields and contribute to this toxic environment that makes it hard NOT to develop disordered eating or chronic dieting patterns. 

So many women will be able to relate to this. The author describes the exact inner dialogue I hear explained by so many clients.
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