The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict

by William Leith

“Hunger is the loudest voice in my head. I’m hungry most of the time.”

William Leith began the eighties slim; by the end of that decade he had packed on an uncomfortable amount of weight. In the early nineties, he was slim again, but his weight began to creep up once more. On January 20th, 2003, he woke up on the fattest day of his life. That same day he left London for New York to interview controversial diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins. But what was meant to be a routine journalistic assignment set Leith on an intensely personal and illuminating journey into the mysteries of hunger and addiction.

From his many years as a journalist, Leith knows that being fat is something people find more difficult to talk about than nearly anything else. But in The Hungry Years he does precisely that. Leith uses his own pathological relationship with food as a starting point and reveals himself, driven to the kitchen first thing in the morning to inhale slice after slice of buttered toast, wracked by a physical and emotional need that only food can satisfy. He travels through fast food-scented airports and coffee shops as he explores the all-encompassing power of advertising and the unattainable notions of physical perfection that feed the multibillion dollar diet industry.

Fat has been called a feminist William Leith’s unblinking look at the physical consequences and psychological pain of being an overweight man charts fascinating new territory for everyone who has ever had a craving or counted a calorie. The Hungry Years is a story of food, fat, and addiction that is both funny and heartwrenching.

I was sitting in a café on the corner of 3rd Avenue and 24th Street in Manhattan, holding a menu. I was overweight. In fact, I was fat. Like millions of other people, I had entered into a pathological relationship with food, and with my own body. For years I had desperately wanted to write about why this had happened — not just to me, but to all those other people as well. I knew it had a lot to do with food. But I also knew it was connected to all sorts of outside forces. If I could understand what had happened to me, I could tell people what had happened to them, too. Right there and then, I decided that I would do everything to discover why I had got fat. I would look at every angle. And then I would lose weight, and report back from the slim world.
—Excerpt from The Hungry Years

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Health, Food, Biography, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

296 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2005

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A NY gluton ... with a mild form of the psychological luggage that binge-eaters carry ? He never truly reveals his inner demons, only his boarding school reminisences provide meaningful hints, as does his passive-aggresive smoker girlfriend. Anyway, a gluton becomes an Atkins apostle becomes a moderate, balanced eater.

His journey passes through the naked underbelly of the food industry in a softcore version of "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal", into the office of Dr. Atkins himself shortly before his heart gave up on him and out to... where ? Parts of this self-discovery feel like badly charted detours into pills, psychiatry and alcohol-fueled stripclub traumas.

Journalist Leigh presents us with a straight flush, but he also uses a sleight of hand to mask any cards we're not allowed to look into. It deludes what could've been a highly personal yet well-informed confession. As it stands, I want a plate of steak and veggies while I read. Followed by chocolate chip cookies.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an incredible book. It would have been hilarious if I hadn't found myself cringing with so many oh-crap-that's-me moments. Its anti-consumerism message is just as powerful as Naomi Klein's and Eric Schlosser's and much more enjoyable (I failed to finish either of the above, bogged down in their preachiness). It truly has made me see food in a different way. Time will tell whether this has a palpable effect on my waistband, although seeing as I just ate a naan bread the size of a small country, I very much doubt it.........

[Jadewolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, I really couldn't stop reading it!

To sum it up, I would use words like: completely honest, real, tragic, inspirational and hopeful too.

This guy doesn't lie about how many pieces of toast he ate for breakfast like most of us do. I think how much we actually eat is one of the biggest lies we often tell to ourselves.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in obesity or modern overindulgence, or perhaps anyone who needs some motivation to change bad eating (and lifestyle) habits.

[Mark Farley · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Leith's sardonic and inspiring account of weight loss and and diet culture had me intrigued and fascinated and had me laughing along to his random quips and his experience meeting the famous Dr. Atkins himself. The best part of this book is the author's obsession and self-psychosis over his cravings for toast.

[Jay Rain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating - 7.8

Started out to be dry & repetitive as Leith points out the fight w his eating disorder & general disdain exhibited by society towards overweight people although the statistics on fadiets were interesting

More interesting in the second half of the book which focusses on addiction & void within people; Equates dieting w other temporary solutions (plastic surgery) that fail in trying to create happiness

Interesting Thoughts
Cannon Conundrum - all diets actually make you fat. Diets will fool the mind short term but eventually the body will demand its nourishment causing people to gain more than they had lost

Addictive personalities have psychological override mechanisms that cause them to disengage emotionally

The sexual revolution did not solve women’s problems, it made them worse

47 percent of women wear a size 16 or over

Women magazines have an economic need to make women feel insecure as their advertisers own the products that apparently solve the insecurity

A diet is nothing less than a philosophy

65% of Americans are overweight - 127MM people

Americans spend $32B on snacks per year

In a time of material abundance and consumer choice, the manufacturer must do more than create a product – they must create a need

Successful products are the ones that make you feel hungry

25% of all vegetables eaten are fries - no other food raises your blood sugar as fast

When people see more food, they want to eat more food. Psychologically, people will prefer one large menu item instead of two small menu items

Western world is bloated and pornographic - obese and obscene. We have pretty much everything we want and that does not make us happy but instead hungry

Atkins diet absolved personal accountability - it is not me that is causing the problem, it is the food that is the issue

25% of household pets are at risk of obesity

Western world is becoming addicted to food, communication and drinking

The average cell phone user talks on the cell phone seven hours per month. It is a state of absent presence

Homer Simpson consumes 3100 calories per day and weighs in at 240 pounds

People no longer have to use descriptive communication - they just have to text or send an e-mail

Scariest thing about painkillers is that they exist in between medicine and product. They no longer need someone to prescribe but rather someone to market

Value of Starbuck’s is in the consumer need. Has a value of $7.2B but only $1.2B was tangible assets

Greed is a compensation for pain

If winning were easy than everyone would do it

95% of people who lose weight either gain it back or even more

Diets are like facelifts which aspire to make you resemble a different type of person, but can never make you a different person

Facelifts disguise you as more attractive, just like credit cards disguise you as wealthy and mobile phones as a connected person. Ultimate result is a net loss

The "ok ok" response to life is not healthy and leads to procrastination and void

Money-minded individuals are less happy than those who are not

Compulsion is an avoidance of emotions

People demand convenience so they shop in supermarkets where the food tends to be more fattening

[Siobhan Pratt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of an overweight and insatiably hungry man, who sets out to understand and conquer this hunger, and resulting weight issue (along with the more complicated issues of body image, body consciousness and societal acceptance).
With pure candour William Leith lets us into his world; the world of someone who has lost control in the attempt to, by any means possible, sate that empty , hollow, hungry feeling.
Leith is a journalist, and as such his research is thorough and impeccable, his conclusions eye-opening and thought provoking. He starts his journey with an interesting interview with the late Dr Atkins, and some success following his no/low carb diet, which surprisingly irks many around him.
I was particularly interested in his description of the humble potatoes’ journey from field to French fry (and don’t think I’ll ever touch a crisp or chip again!)
The interpretation of the economic reasons for promoting high carb and sugar diets, despite the rising obesity problems, is alarming and probably accurate.
Leith speaks to many other industry figures, addicts, famous fat people, anonymous fat people, therapists, gurus and task forces, and presents us with wide-ranging perspectives on the reasons the West, and those parts of the world being Westernised, are over indulging, getting bigger, becoming more unhealthy, less happy, and apparently being encouraged to do so by media and market forces.
With unhindered graphic insight into his personal relationships with food, alcohol, drugs and promiscuity we conclude that there is hope, a way out of being fat and hungry.
But I would say it seems that hope will come to the individual who explores his or her own reasons for over eating, and researches for themselves what a healthy diet is.
This memoir is both moving and told with great humour; I only hope this review has done its wit, depth and honesty justice.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn’t the food investigation or eating memoir I expected - I should have focused on the “addict” portion of the subtitle and descriptions on the back because what this is, is a book about addiction. Note that the author is also involved with alcoholism and drug use (cocaine).

I found the use of present tense, combined with a very vague sense of timeline, really off-putting. Leith seems to hate himself and also be a not very nice person overall. I suppose that could be refreshing in a memoir and the back might be drawing on that to get the “darkly funny” reviews. But honestly this isn’t funny. It’s just kind of sad.

What it also is, is disorganized and vague. Despite plenty of vivid descriptions (including three pages of incredibly in-depth description of a facelift survey, shudder), he manages to say very little. The summary of the book is probably “people are overweight for a lot of complicated reasons, the most important of which are rarely directly food-related”. And I mean…you don’t need a book to tell you that? He seems to be trying to do a series of interviews and some solid journalistic research here but entirely fails to communicate it. It almost feels like he forgot to get an editor or include the conclusions of most of his plotlines.

This is two stars instead of one, however, because he DOES show some interesting ability to tell seemingly unrelated anecdotes that link back to his point in interesting ways; also because he has some half-decent insights by the end. I’m not entirely certain what they are though. So maybe two stars is generous!

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree with the premise of this book - about why individual people overeat and why western societies are getting fatter and less happy, but all the drinking, drug-taking, overeating stories went on and on - and were seriously boring. It was described as “a hilarious...memoir”. I didn’t laugh once. I contemplated giving up on it a couple of times but finally saw it through to the end. I don’t think I’ll be hanging on to this book for a re-read.

[Susan Steed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book ages ago and it was a really important book for me as it was the first book I'd come across that really captured binge eating in a way I could relate to. I think, but I'm not sure, that this book also introduced me to the work of the fabulous Susie Orbach. It also made me see more about how gender stereotypes are marketed to us.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kirja pitää sisällään muutamia hyviä ajatuksia, mutta paljon kirjasta saisi karsia pois. Monta kymmentä sivua oli pelkkää Atkins hehkutusta, siitä tasapainoisempaan ruokavalioon muuttaminen kuitattiin muutamalla lauseella. Ahminnan syitä ei juurikaan avattu, hyvin pintapuolista pohdintaa.

[Winter Slade · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started out pretty average. It was mainly just William ranting about his childhood, which he does throughout the book. Then, in the middle, it gets a million times worse. He gets thrown off course and gets extremely over-dramatic. There's a 10-page segment of the book where he describes a woman's face-lift surgery! Overall, when I try to think about what I learned from this book, I can't think of much at all. Wish I hadn't picked it up, to be honest.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part memoir and musings on life's demons and part social commentary on the availability and cheapness of junk food in society, this has many of the same hallmarks as Fast Food Nation but in a lighter and sometimes more self-deprecating tone.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A relevant and relatable book where the author dives into finding the cause and the solutions to his eating habits. He is honest in tracking his habits and his thoughts (or lack of thoughts) throughout the process.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and informative. I enjoyed the details of getting a facelift (not for me !) I guess food can be a drug or at least a product for compulsive behaviour...

[Judi Mckay · Rating 3 out of 5]

An early anti carb book

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and easy reading. Some insightful opinions as well.

[Khairi]

Fast food sinonim dengan kegemukan. Buku yang penuh dengan pelbagai cara untuk mengkuruskan badan dari kaedah tradisional ke zaman mellinium.

[Jane Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much good information.

[Rick Bach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny and honest. There's some good stuff about the evils of the food industry.

[moved · Rating 3 out of 5]

All over the place in a good way

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book in Biblus, a local bookshop and bought it because on the cover there was a quote: "This hilarious, self-lacerating memoir of a compulsive eater is a superb book." It was also reasonably priced at 6.95 lari (although lately I have found sometimes the price on the book at Biblus is different to the price at the cash till...).

I think I may have been expecting something like Bridget Jones' Diary, it wasn't that funny but it was interesting.

The author William Leith has a history of being prone to various addictions: alcohol, cocaine and the focus of this book, food. It would seem the problem is carbohydrates, particularly in the form of toast, bagels, rice, pasta or fries in that they are very moreish and very addictive. Fat it is true has more calories, gramme for gramme than carbohydrate but carbs are easier to metabolise and leave you wanting more.

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories
Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories
Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories
Alcohol: 1 gram = 7 calories

The author points out we are eating less fat these days but still obesity is on the rise and like his guru Dr Atkins, he lays the blame on carbs. The author hasn’t been fat all his life and often looks back to times when he was slim. There were periods in his life when he did a lot of exercise and others when he did a lot of drugs. The book is a personal look at the mysteries of hunger and addiction. Science is mixed with personal hunches.

McDonalds wasn’t built on the burger but on the French Fry…”The French fry” Ray Kroc (founder of the McDonalds Chain) once wrote, ” would become almost sacrosanct for me, its preparation a ritual to be followed religiously.”

Leith has lots of interesting anecdotes and insights into the food industry. He shows how McDonalds increased the size of the portions (like in the film Super Size me).

"When you see more fries, you want more fries.And after you eat more fries, your blood sugar crashes and you really do feel more hungry. Then, of course, you want more fries."

There are medical details about hyperinsulinism and the workings of the pancreas, how we evolved on a low carbohydrate diet and the abundance of starchy foods is a recent phenomenon. There is the claim that in 1955, a serving of fries at McDonald’s weighed 2.4 oz and had 210 calories and today (the book was published in 2005) a serving is 4.3oz and packing in 610 calories. I’m not quite sure about the maths unless the fry of today is more fatty than the fry of the fifties, which is possible.

The author follows some of the teachings of Atkins but not always to the letter, in his anti-sugar, post-sandwich, post-bagel state, he will still drink coffee, which has a negative effect on insulin production, but he does state “you have to draw the line somewhere.”

There are tangents, where the author looks at other addictions, alcohol, cocaine, shopping and pornography and the increasing addiction to electronic communication (which results in the paradox that “every day, we are more connected, every day, we are less connected.“)

William Leith is good at delving into the psychology of being fat, the stigma of being fat and explains why he, like many others, loathes being fat. He even undergoes therapy and blames to some extent his mother for his eating foibles (Freud would be proud).

I was cheekily reading the book in various carb-heavy environments: Dunkin' Donuts and Wendy's. Luckily, weighing in at 70kg (the ideal weight for my height is somewhere between 65 and 70kg), I don't see I have a weight problem, so as with many books this gives me an opportunity to look into another world. I may after reading this book watch what I eat in future. But I do rather like French fries...

My rating : 4 out of 5 (good, but I was expecting it to be funnier)

[Dina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I really think this book tries to tackle too much (a social commentary, a memoir, a journal article), I still think it's a pretty good read. Not so much stylistically, maybe, but it let me think more on some ideas about the obesity epidemic that I had previously disregarded. I'm quick to dismiss the idea that the reason obesity has taken such a strong-hold in the past 50 years has anything to do with feeling betrayed by your parents. Surely, countless generations of kids have felt this way about their moms and dads (isn't that what adolescence is about) and yet this crisis is just now cropping up. Somehow, for me, this book connected the idea of this being an added factor in a rapidly changing culture. Perhaps these feeling were/are legitimately more prevalent because, yes, mothers were beginning to take on jobs, parents were becoming work-a-holics in that never ending quest to have more, parents are compensating for their absence by feeding their kids (sweets), which of course is just as empty a gesture as conveying that you love your child because you bought them a BMW. So maybe there is something more here that I've overlooked, because, let's be honest, doesn't that sound just a little too mushy and sensitive to be true? I'd be interested in comparing family histories of obese bingers with anorexic restrictors; would we find opposite ends of the spectrum or just two malfunctioned behaviours in response to the same stimulus: absence.

Anyway, I find major fault with this book for concentrating so explicitly on the Atkins diet. I was surprised by Leith's conviction in defending it for the majority of the book and somewhat unconvinced when he seemed to drop the diet cold turkey after having results that thrilled him. For a while I was wondering if he would ever see the light. There are some problems in his blaming various industries for only focusing on 'salt, sugar and fat' as the sources of obesity but 'neglecting carbs'. Sugar is a carb. I feel as though surely Leith had known this; maybe he was just trying to comment on the media's attempt to separate the idea of sugar from carbs, I don't know. The last hundred pages or so were a bit self-indulgent for me. I very much get the impression that Leith was trying to craft himself as a James Frey-like character and I really don't have time for that... But all in all, a good read and even a bit eye opening.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, while I agree with his conclusion at the end of the book I also think there are many other causes of obesity: greed without any childhood trauma, people brought up eating processed food, with little to no fresh fruit and vegetables, or home cooked meals, never drinking water or milk - just pop and squash, a family predisposition to obesity, medical causes - undiagnosed and diagnosed - many, many more too. The cause was identified for Leith, but that's not to say it's right not for all.

Leith is a great writer, I enjoyed the pace of the book and admired his little quotes from famous interviewees which spoke for themselves and gave a slant to the section in which they were placed; Renee Zellweger's thoughts about her weight gain for Bridget Jones for example. (Nowadays when we watch the first film it's interesting to note that Bridget barely rates as fat, we're so much more used to much larger people, she just looks a bit chunky.

The Atkins section, a third of the book at least, seems to fizzle out. There isn't really a reason given why he didn't continue. Was it just too much of a struggle?

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Leith is addicted to carbohydrates, and decides to go on the Atkins diet. Part memoir and part reporting, he explains how eating carbs makes you want to eat more carbs, and sympathetically describes how the Atkins diet can seem like a reasonable solution to that problem. There is insightful reporting about the production of fast-food french fries, and how they are designed to be addictive-- better than "Fast Food Nation." Leith unflinchingly describes the intimate details of his dieting: from the all-or-nothing thinking that characterizes the first religious days of a diet, to the self-loathing associated with going off of a diet in one great binge. While the process of dieting appears to be similar for women and men, he provides superb insight into body image issues for men. Anyone struggling with long-term weight loss will find something to identify with in this book.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 19 stone, Willian Leith is fat. He flies to London to interview Dr. Atkins, who claims carbohydrates are the problem. This begins his personal food journey, exploring the belief that low-fat diets are the way to go, his problems with alcohol and drugs, and his weights through the years.

This was a good book, basically. He isn't an Atkins nut, one who believes it's the be-all and end-all. He doesn't believe diets are the answer. He doesn't want to be thin, just slim.
He doesn't want a quick fix, but a fix that will work.

I read this book and see a lot of myself in it.

Recommended for anyone who wants to know more about diets, dieting and the food companies' relationship with the customer.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a very open account of addiction but I felt like the book lacked focus. It read like a series of articles, rarely with a clear sense of direction. The book begins as an account of what sounds like binge eating disorder, becomes a study of the Atkins diet, then cycles through drugs, plastic surgery, failed relationships and ends up with a rather fuzzy description of therapy (did it work? Did it not? Did they do anything to help him work through his problems or did he just talk about himself for a bit?).

'The Hungry Years' is far from bad and very interesting at times, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere. I think a little more planning in the early stages of writing wouldn't have gone amiss.

[Daniella Armstrong · Rating 1 out of 5]

Let me sum up The Hungry Years to save you the trouble of reading it. A man gains weight. The man has a problem with overeating, alcohol, and cocaine. It takes this man an entire book to come to the conclusion that his problems stem from a psychological place.

This was a rather tiring read, the author’s own loathing of his fat self brought up constantly. It is vaguely linear, with many inserts disturbing the timeline enough to be irritating. Are you telling me a story or regurgitating past interview and facts from other sources?

Honestly this book felt a lot like a self-pitying and self-loathing life story that I didn’t sign up to read. I was hoping for a deeper insight into overeating, but I certainly didn’t get it.

[Jeannette · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very interested in reading this book because I'm always thinking about food. I'm not a binger or a dieter but food is definitely a love festering with issues. I didn't like how Leith claims diets don't work, yet after he meets Robert Atkins, he becomes swayed and loses all his excess pounds via a low carb diet (a therapist helps him remove his excess baggage). Even though he does put some blame on the obesity epidemic on modern life which leaves us hungry and always wanting more, the carb issue still seems to be the lingering message of the book. According to Leith, carbs are the devil and so are your parents. However, blaming parents is something I can always get behind.

[Lauren Mechling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. It's a hilarious writer's reflection on our culture of overeating, over-consuming, over-drinking, over-coke-snorting. Part-reported, part-memoir, the book veers all over the place, from a plastic surgeon's operating table to Dr. Atkins' global headquarters to Leith's therapy sessions and pathetic trips to the deli. The parts where he steps back and analyzes society don't hold a candle to his virtuoso passages about himself, the ones that make us feel as if we're the ones who are buttering to much toast or going on a coke binge and waking up the next morning with our face in a stack of CDs. Added bonus: you learn what Andy Warhol's diet secret was.

[Meg]

What a mix of personal memoir, interviews, and rambling about the feeling of fatness and the obesity crises. (In my head, he lived in Vancouver that whole time even though he seems to travel widely) food addiction or compulsive behavior is probably not the same as other people's experiences of being fat however so grains of salt. The description of his time on the Atkins diet is fascinating from the post Paleo/Keto craze. The 5% dietary success answer is fully brutal: "just a little bit less, forever." I read this because his more recent memoir "bits of me are falling apart" wasn't available yet so let's see how it goes!