The Good Eater: The True Story of One Man's Struggle With Binge Eating Disorder

by Ron Saxen

At the age of twenty-one, stylish and striking Ron Saxen turned heads on the street. A promising model with a tony California agency, his lithe and muscular body graced the pages of magazines and even the cover of a fitness book. He was headed for a future of bright lights and brighter possibilities-but a dark turn of events would leave Saxen working for minimum wage in a coffee shop and dodging his agent less than a year later. Binge eating disorder, a malady that strikes some 2.5 million Americans-40 percent of whom are men-led Saxen to gain nearly one hundred pounds, destroying his modeling career and threatening his health and sanity. This compelling memoir tells Saxen's story as he plunges into binge eating, dangerous starvation diets, drug use, and a rollercoaster ride of odd careers, destructive relationships, and personal tragedies-all set against a fabulous backdrop that ranges from the streets of Sacramento to the fundamentalist enclaves of the Great Plains. A gripping page turner from start to finish, this amazing personal memoir will help break stereotypes and shed new light on this common disorder.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Mental Illness

264 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[cobwebbing · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is hovering between two and three stars but ultimately I'm leaning towards two just because of how incredibly unpleasant the final stretch of this book is, which made me retroactively realize the flaws in the initial sections. It left a really bad taste in my mouth.

First, the good: I really enjoy the way that this memoir is written. It's mostly made up of short stories of varying length, sometimes only a sentence long, sometimes many pages. It really feels like a conversation that you're having with someone. For the first two thirds I was thoroughly engrossed in everything.

Then, slowly but surely, Saxen's voice became unpleasant to read and the events of his life continued to go into a downward spiral that even the ultimate good outcome couldn't save.

Ron Saxen does not seem like a person I would realistically like if I met him. Even knowing all of his suffering, I think I would have the overwhelming urge to deck him. He's self-conscious but paradoxically self-centered. He has really nasty things to say about a lot of people he meets, even his best friend. The way that he talks about women is really disturbing. He describes multiple instances where he tried to get one of his girlfriends drunk enough to have sex with him. Gross.

Even putting that aside, the general tone of the book gets horribly unpleasant toward the end. On some level, I get it, it's a memoir, you've gotta tell it like it is, but my goodness. At some points things are out of his control, especially earlier on, but eventually Saxen makes so many bad decisions back to back to back that I couldn't help but get frustrated. You proposed to your abusive girlfriend that you walked out on... AGAIN? You flung yourself into multiple wildly different careers with no safety net? You smoked meth instead of dealing with your problems? You, a married person, are confessing your feelings for another married person without both of you breaking things off first? Etc. There's a high chance that I'm being too critical; I'm a young person and I've been lucky in life so far, but GOOD GOLLY, DUDE. If I did half of these things I would take it to my grave.

Furthermore, I feel like the title is almost... clickbait-y. More than once I thought, "Ah, so this is the part where we're going to focus more on BED." And then the book would take a hard left turn into talking about the cult-like church he was in or his career as a comedian or in the marines. I know that these things are linked to his BED, but it still felt like it was never the main focus or even that the "plot," such as it is, had a lot to do with it. The title is at least fair in its choice of the word "struggle"--this is very much mostly about the misery of struggling with BED for a lifetime and not very much about recovering from it. Recovery gets a glorified cameo in the very last very short chapter. I'm glad there's SOME level of recovery.

I don't know, I'm glad I got this book as a used former library book for like three bucks but now I'm irritated I have to figure out a way to get rid of it because there's no way in heck I'm ever reading it again.

Also, there's an extremely graphic, long description of killing chickens at one point. Thanks for that. Really added to the story.

[Autumn Carney · Rating 4 out of 5]

The funny (yet a bit sad) thing about this book is, while reading it, I thought “this guy seems so down to earth, a friendly dude, probably so easy to talk to”, but he thought the exact opposite of himself. I really enjoyed this book; I think this book is actually super important for representation in the eating disorder community. Hearing the perspective of, 1. A male with an eating disorder, and 2. Someone with binge eating disorder, is not very common. As someone who also suffers an ED, it was hard to read at times; but hey I know what I was getting myself into when I picked up this book. I loved knowing every thought in his mind and relating to them. I loved his honestly and the ways he analyzed himself and connecting the dots. I couldn’t stop smiling throughout the last chapter, hearing how much of a better place he was now in.

[Vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

One thing that I distinctly loved about this memoir is how honest and vulnerable the author was! The story of a male model who has an eating disorder, and how everyone deals with societal pressure, body positivity, self-love, self-acceptance and overcoming one's weaknesses. This autobiography was very inspiring to read and knowing how important it is to live a healthy lifestyle. It was enlighting to know about binge eating disorder and being aware of a male perspective on it.

I am personally not a huge fan of autobiography as a genre, but the book is well illustrated. Genuinely, much respect to Ron Saxen for sharing his story with the world.

[Becca Goyeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

First hand look at binge eating disorder, very interesting read!

[Bethany McCarty-Kirkman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The whole book was two stars, except for the last chapter which was a 5/5.

[Stefanie Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have currently finished reading the book "The Good Eater" I gave this book 3 stars because to me this book was nothing what I expected. what I expected was more about the disorder than the author child hood (Ron Saxen). but yes I do agree to talk about his childhood because his disorder started from when he was a child. but then again he talked too much about it even about his siblings, parents, crushes and etc.. yet I will get to the point;this book is about a man named Ron Saxen who grows up in a bad environment home and tries to make something of himself by going after all the wrong things because he really never had no one to guide him to the right path. Number one being food and then girls, find love to make love, and to get money from where ever there is an opportunity. In the end though he realizes that the only thing that makes him well is realizing he will never be perfect and learning to accept himself with himself. I found the book very interesting at some point. The only reason I gave it a 3 is becuase of the constant swearing, cussing, and his child hood. and I got tired of it in the end.
I do highly respect Mr. Saxen for overcoming his eating disorder. i loved how he was very honest about everything, and the way he was really brave to even talked about.

[Laurel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't what I expected. As one Amazon.com reviewer wrote, "This is not a 'how to recover' book, it is one man's struggle and how he survived." That's basically it in a nutshell. His early years were painful and his struggles with BED were very real, but I couldn't help feel the book still didn't get beneath the surface and the flipness (some may say humor) was offputting to me. At one point my thought was "So is he advocating smoking crank as a tool in recovery?" I think the book would have benefited from more insight. The last chapter was the best part of the book. I wish he would have said that up front.

There are very few books out there on males with EDs. I'm still searching. This wasn't it.

[Brigid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Male anorexia... I couldn't resist.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, and I thought MY midnight binge attacks were bad!

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't finish it. I didn't like his style of writing and I was getting tired of hearing about his childhood.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-done memoir. Told the story of a male model with an eating disorder. Interesting to hear the male perspective on body image and the pressure to feel *attractive/thin*. Very enlightening.