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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Logan Area Public Library | 616.85 KAZ | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Women of all ages struggle with disordered eating, preoccupation with food, and body anxiety. Journalist Cole Kazdin was one such woman, and she set out to discover why her own full recovery from an eating disorder felt so impossible. Interviewing women across the country as well as the world's most renowned researchers, she discovered that most people with eating disorders never receive treatment--the fact that she did made her one of the lucky ones. Kazdin takes us to the doorstep of the diet industry and research community, exposing the flawed systems that claim to be helping us, and revealing disordered eating for the crisis that it is: a mental illness with the second highest mortality rate (after opioid-related deaths) that no one wants to talk about. Along the way, she identifies new treatments not yet available to the general public, grass roots movements to correct racial disparities in care, and strategies for navigating true health while still living in a dysfunctional world. What would it feel like to be free? To feel gorgeous in your body, not ruminate about food, feel ease at meals, exercise with no regard for calories-burned? To never making a disparaging comment about your body again, even silently to yourself. Who can help us with this? We can. What's Eating Us is an urgent battle cry coupled with stories and strategies about what works and how to finally heal--for real.
Author Notes
COLE KAZDIN is a writer, performer and four-time Emmy Award winning television journalist. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, The Daily Beast, Cosmopolitan, NPR, and more. Cole is a graduate of Northwestern University and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Los Angeles.
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
Eating disorders are a massive yet often hidden problem, writes the author, who speaks with the insight of experience. Early on, Kazdin, a four-time Emmy Award--winning TV journalist, cites some remarkable, frightening statistics. "Over 90 percent of women in the United States are dissatisfied with their bodies," she writes, and nearly 30 million people "suffer from an eating disorder." Furthermore, eating disorders have the second-highest mortality rate of any mental illness, on a par with opioid deaths, and the problem crosses socio-economic lines. Kazdin has struggled with a disorder herself, and her book is as much her personal story as an examination of body anxiety. The author discusses how diet and weight-loss businesses are rebranding themselves as being about good health, a misleading ploy to continue to grow an industry approaching a valuation of $300 billion. "Weight stigma is deeply embedded into our culture," she writes. The idea that thinness equals personal worth and social success is everywhere. Kazdin examines the wide range of diets on the market and concludes that they simply do not work. Some will lead to temporary weight loss, but it always comes back. The author's own obsessive drive to be thin involved starvation-level diets, punishing exercise routines, and, ultimately, self-induced vomiting. All this made her feel in control--at least until the larger health consequences began to appear. Through therapy and support, she managed to build something like a normal life, but she wonders if she will ever completely recover. "My eating disorder never left," she writes. "It's always there, lying in wait like a trained assassin." The author also describes new research suggesting that eating disorders may stem from physical problems in the brain rather than from behavioral issues, which would fundamentally change treatment options. The real solution, she writes, is to get past the social pressure and achieve self-acceptance. Kazdin's painful honesty is leavened with humor and irony. Hopefully, this book will reach the people who need it. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | 1 |
| 1 Rules and Rebellion | 17 |
| 2 Love Spells and Diets Are Equally Effective | 32 |
| 3 It Works Until It Doesn't | 47 |
| 4 The Standard of Care (JK! There Isn't One!) | 66 |
| 5 Over-What? | 81 |
| 6 Why Doesn't Body Positivity Feel Better? | 96 |
| 7 Recovery-ish | 109 |
| 8 The Innovators | 124 |
| 9 The Corners Where No One's Looking | 142 |
| 10 In This Together | 159 |
| 11 It I Happens When You Stop Trying | 175 |
| 12 Letting Yourself Go | 192 |
| Epilogue | 211 |
| Resources | 225 |
| Acknowledgments | 229 |
| Notes | 231 |
