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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
Fat as an issue is a very dear to my heart. I am a fat woman and I struggled, and sadly still struggle because of this. It is really hard to be a fat woman in a world that is praising thinness as the ideal of health and beauty. It's hard because people closest to you are often the ones that project their fears of fat onto you and constantly hurt emotionally because of this. We are surrounded by people that 'care' about our health, and don't hesitate to tell us about it. I believe that a successful, fat woman, especially successful on the Internet is one of the strongest people on the planet. Hoe much shit she has to endure to just live and enjoy her life.
Fat is a Feminist Issues tackles all the emotional issues that come with being fat, or just from believing that your body is not 'perfect' and should be slimmer at all cost. It tackles emotional eating. This is in an essence the topic of the book - why we overeat and how to deal with it. It all starts when Susie Orbach joins a feminist group that is working on body image and overeating problem. Because of this group, she manages to understand why she sometimes eats more than her body needs, why she eats when she's not hungry. She then becomes an expert in helping women with overeating problem, and the book is both collection of self-help exercises and histories of women that Orbach worked with. It brings a lot of examples why fat truly is a feminist issue because our overeating has a lot to do with how we are raised, what is expected from us, and from society's pressure for one kind of body to be ideal and visible in public spaces.
This book helped me a lot, I had quite a few illuminating moments when I was reading stories of some women, and Orbach explanations and deep dive into why this issue, if not dealt with, results in overeating as a dealing mechanism. However, what bothered me when I was reading this book was that no women which history was told in the book, was really fat. They were at most 10 kilogrammes (22 lbs) overweight. How can I relate to that? Women that is 10 kg overweight can still benefit from thin privilege, it's unlikely that she will have to deal with the same issues like 25, 40 or 50 kg overweight women. Or am I wrong? I was just disappointed that there was no story of a fat woman... The other thing that bothered me is that the book gets a bit repetitive at times.
I recommend this book to anyone who is trying to work on their eating problems. I wouldn't go so far as to say it will help with eating disorders, but I believe it might help in therapy. Also, if you have a group of like-minded women that want to work out their emotions connected with eating, this book is for you. It's a basic manual on how to start a help group.
Fat is a Feminist Issues tackles all the emotional issues that come with being fat, or just from believing that your body is not 'perfect' and should be slimmer at all cost. It tackles emotional eating. This is in an essence the topic of the book - why we overeat and how to deal with it. It all starts when Susie Orbach joins a feminist group that is working on body image and overeating problem. Because of this group, she manages to understand why she sometimes eats more than her body needs, why she eats when she's not hungry. She then becomes an expert in helping women with overeating problem, and the book is both collection of self-help exercises and histories of women that Orbach worked with. It brings a lot of examples why fat truly is a feminist issue because our overeating has a lot to do with how we are raised, what is expected from us, and from society's pressure for one kind of body to be ideal and visible in public spaces.
This book helped me a lot, I had quite a few illuminating moments when I was reading stories of some women, and Orbach explanations and deep dive into why this issue, if not dealt with, results in overeating as a dealing mechanism. However, what bothered me when I was reading this book was that no women which history was told in the book, was really fat. They were at most 10 kilogrammes (22 lbs) overweight. How can I relate to that? Women that is 10 kg overweight can still benefit from thin privilege, it's unlikely that she will have to deal with the same issues like 25, 40 or 50 kg overweight women. Or am I wrong? I was just disappointed that there was no story of a fat woman... The other thing that bothered me is that the book gets a bit repetitive at times.
I recommend this book to anyone who is trying to work on their eating problems. I wouldn't go so far as to say it will help with eating disorders, but I believe it might help in therapy. Also, if you have a group of like-minded women that want to work out their emotions connected with eating, this book is for you. It's a basic manual on how to start a help group.
Orbach says many true things about life for women, though nothing that will sound new to 2014 feminist readers. My initial summation, though, is ‘hogwash, the lot of it’.
Partly this reaction comes from the fact that I recognised this book as an influential feminist text but I didn’t realise how old it is. (About as old as me, it turns out.) For some reason I thought it dated from the 90s. It’s no coincidence that this book came out at the start of the 80s; its debut coincides with publication of the American food guidelines (you know, the pyramid) and I’m in the camp which says that that particular pyramid is what has led to the diabetes/obesity epidemic. But around the time this was written, obesity and overweight possibly affected a different cohort of people. Nowadays, you can be overweight and not have a single psychological thing wrong with you. Indeed, eating a ‘regular’ Australian diet is going to put most people in the overweight category by early middle age. In other words, many are fat simply because they’re following the guidelines.
So what to make of a book which puts overweight and binge eating down to psychological reasons? I wonder if this attitude does more harm than good. If ‘fat’ (adipose tissue) is a feminist issue, there’s the assumption that it’s women mainly who are fat — not true — men are carrying slightly more adipose tissue than women are, and if this female fat is down to emotional baggage, then it’s a very small leap to end up with ‘fat women are fat because fat women are emotional’. Surely this is where fatism comes from? The link with sexism is clear. After all, women are emotional, right? (Which is why we can’t be trusted to run countries and so on and so forth.)
What dates this book is that science has moved on since 1980. Sure, it’s not yet part of the established medical system, but I happen to be with the likes of Enig and Fallon and Taubes and Cordain, putting overweight down to a mixture of genetics and biochemistry. The hormones associated with weight homeostasis are still being discovered. Ghrelin (‘the hunger hormone’) was discovered in 1996 and reported in 1999. This is amazingly recent, right? What else is on the horizon? The high carbohydrate diet recommended by our respective governments has a direct influence on insulin, itself a master hormone which influences many others such as this one. We also know that cortisol affects weight gain. In this respect, ‘emotions’ are related to weight, sure, but why is it that ‘binge eating’ is a female problem? ‘One woman I was seeing inexplicably ate candy periodically during the day while she was at work. We discovered that the intake of sweets had to do with the attempt to sweeten herself, to make herself “nice” when indeed she was feeling quite angry.’ A modern explanation would put the blame squarely on the spike in insulin, which set off an entire chain of biochemical reactions in her body, causing her to want more sugar some minutes later. Using sweets as a metaphor for emotions and personality seems like a real leap of imagination once the biochemistry of sugar is understood. In her final chapter, Orbach dismisses the ‘biochemical theory’ of female binge-eating, instead attributing it to being a woman living in a patriarchy. If this is any part of the story at all, I doubt it’s a very big one.
My interpretation is quite different from that of Orbach. I observe that we reserve a special hatred for overweight women, and their only socially acceptable addictions are food and coffee and exercise. When we think as a society of ‘binge eating’ we think of chocolate cake and fridge-raids at midnight. But you know what else is ‘binge eating’? Drinking beer and eating pretzels while watching a ball game with mates. Why do we not call that ‘binge eating’? (‘Binge drinking’ is seen as a separate issue again, and mainly affects youth. It’s associated with youth and socialising and fun, not female psychosis.) Google ‘stock photo binge eating’ and you’ll see sexism at work: Almost all of the photos of binge-eating depict women. Many of them are sexualised. The women are always alone.
Fat is definitely a socioeconomic issue. Highly processed foods are keeping many of the poorest people from starving. Good food is expensive, and hard to find in many of the poorest neighbourhoods.
I do not feel that fat is a feminist issue. Well, I do, but not in the way presented by this book. Perhaps it was like this back in the 70s. Perhaps this book has helped many women. Fat is still a feminist issue, but only in that fat women are judged more harshly than fat men. To offer just one example: overweight men can buy extra large clothing in the same section of a chain store, whereas overweight women must go to a special section (a fat ghetto, for lack of a better term), and constantly reminded that fat is not a normal variation of existing. Except, with our current food culture, it is. Being fat does not mean you have emotional/psychological issues. She’s not ‘scared of being thin’ or covering up childhood trauma or expressing her anger on her own body… ’When you see a fat woman, all you know about her is that she is fat.’
I doubt the overweight issue is going to be truly understood until hormones are better understood by the mainstream medical establishment. And we’ll be waiting a while before that food pyramid changes to a higher fat, higher protein diet low in sugars because there’s lots of money behind it. In the meantime, the best we can do is avoid making assumptions about the interior lives of others based on their weight.
Partly this reaction comes from the fact that I recognised this book as an influential feminist text but I didn’t realise how old it is. (About as old as me, it turns out.) For some reason I thought it dated from the 90s. It’s no coincidence that this book came out at the start of the 80s; its debut coincides with publication of the American food guidelines (you know, the pyramid) and I’m in the camp which says that that particular pyramid is what has led to the diabetes/obesity epidemic. But around the time this was written, obesity and overweight possibly affected a different cohort of people. Nowadays, you can be overweight and not have a single psychological thing wrong with you. Indeed, eating a ‘regular’ Australian diet is going to put most people in the overweight category by early middle age. In other words, many are fat simply because they’re following the guidelines.
So what to make of a book which puts overweight and binge eating down to psychological reasons? I wonder if this attitude does more harm than good. If ‘fat’ (adipose tissue) is a feminist issue, there’s the assumption that it’s women mainly who are fat — not true — men are carrying slightly more adipose tissue than women are, and if this female fat is down to emotional baggage, then it’s a very small leap to end up with ‘fat women are fat because fat women are emotional’. Surely this is where fatism comes from? The link with sexism is clear. After all, women are emotional, right? (Which is why we can’t be trusted to run countries and so on and so forth.)
What dates this book is that science has moved on since 1980. Sure, it’s not yet part of the established medical system, but I happen to be with the likes of Enig and Fallon and Taubes and Cordain, putting overweight down to a mixture of genetics and biochemistry. The hormones associated with weight homeostasis are still being discovered. Ghrelin (‘the hunger hormone’) was discovered in 1996 and reported in 1999. This is amazingly recent, right? What else is on the horizon? The high carbohydrate diet recommended by our respective governments has a direct influence on insulin, itself a master hormone which influences many others such as this one. We also know that cortisol affects weight gain. In this respect, ‘emotions’ are related to weight, sure, but why is it that ‘binge eating’ is a female problem? ‘One woman I was seeing inexplicably ate candy periodically during the day while she was at work. We discovered that the intake of sweets had to do with the attempt to sweeten herself, to make herself “nice” when indeed she was feeling quite angry.’ A modern explanation would put the blame squarely on the spike in insulin, which set off an entire chain of biochemical reactions in her body, causing her to want more sugar some minutes later. Using sweets as a metaphor for emotions and personality seems like a real leap of imagination once the biochemistry of sugar is understood. In her final chapter, Orbach dismisses the ‘biochemical theory’ of female binge-eating, instead attributing it to being a woman living in a patriarchy. If this is any part of the story at all, I doubt it’s a very big one.
My interpretation is quite different from that of Orbach. I observe that we reserve a special hatred for overweight women, and their only socially acceptable addictions are food and coffee and exercise. When we think as a society of ‘binge eating’ we think of chocolate cake and fridge-raids at midnight. But you know what else is ‘binge eating’? Drinking beer and eating pretzels while watching a ball game with mates. Why do we not call that ‘binge eating’? (‘Binge drinking’ is seen as a separate issue again, and mainly affects youth. It’s associated with youth and socialising and fun, not female psychosis.) Google ‘stock photo binge eating’ and you’ll see sexism at work: Almost all of the photos of binge-eating depict women. Many of them are sexualised. The women are always alone.
Fat is definitely a socioeconomic issue. Highly processed foods are keeping many of the poorest people from starving. Good food is expensive, and hard to find in many of the poorest neighbourhoods.
I do not feel that fat is a feminist issue. Well, I do, but not in the way presented by this book. Perhaps it was like this back in the 70s. Perhaps this book has helped many women. Fat is still a feminist issue, but only in that fat women are judged more harshly than fat men. To offer just one example: overweight men can buy extra large clothing in the same section of a chain store, whereas overweight women must go to a special section (a fat ghetto, for lack of a better term), and constantly reminded that fat is not a normal variation of existing. Except, with our current food culture, it is. Being fat does not mean you have emotional/psychological issues. She’s not ‘scared of being thin’ or covering up childhood trauma or expressing her anger on her own body… ’When you see a fat woman, all you know about her is that she is fat.’
I doubt the overweight issue is going to be truly understood until hormones are better understood by the mainstream medical establishment. And we’ll be waiting a while before that food pyramid changes to a higher fat, higher protein diet low in sugars because there’s lots of money behind it. In the meantime, the best we can do is avoid making assumptions about the interior lives of others based on their weight.
Liked the ideas that it presented, but it wasn't enough to hold my interest. Might come back to finish it later!
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Interesting framework to explore, and helpful primarily if you are interested in a group-setting to discuss compulsive eating.
A little dated, but an interesting exploration of what food and eating mean to women, how body image is related, and how to unlearn some negative messages.
feminism has come a long way since 1978 but this book apparently missed the bus. instead of finding a way to nudge you in the right direction of body acceptance, Orbach comes dangerously close to giving you the same “self improvment” tools she criticizes in a toxic diet culture. it’s really confusing. I finished this book so you don’t have to
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I expected something else from this book, and what I got left me disappointed.
informative
slow-paced
eeeeh this is a really difficult book to rate so I'm going to improvise:
Enjoyment - 3/5
Important message - 4/5
Writing - 3/5
Editing - 2.5/5
I found the messages extremely inspirational and thought provoking however (like most self-help books) it was extremely repetitive from beginning to end regarding 2 or 3 of the same points, hence my low rating for editing.
However, this is a very important read for any woman - particularly those who consider themself to be a compulsive eater.
I loved the author's to-the-point attitude and found her refusal to top toe around important yet sensitive issues really refreshing. Although my rating may not reflect it, I would recommend this to anyone who is remmotely interested in the topic.
Enjoyment - 3/5
Important message - 4/5
Writing - 3/5
Editing - 2.5/5
I found the messages extremely inspirational and thought provoking however (like most self-help books) it was extremely repetitive from beginning to end regarding 2 or 3 of the same points, hence my low rating for editing.
However, this is a very important read for any woman - particularly those who consider themself to be a compulsive eater.
I loved the author's to-the-point attitude and found her refusal to top toe around important yet sensitive issues really refreshing. Although my rating may not reflect it, I would recommend this to anyone who is remmotely interested in the topic.