The Art of Not Eating: A Doubtful History of Appetite and Desire

by Jessica Hamel-Akré

The day Jessica Hamel-Akré discovered the ideas of George Cheyne - an eighteenth-century polymath and London society figure known as 'Dr Diet' - it sparked an intellectual obsession, a ten-year study of women's appetite and a personal unravelling. In this bold and radical book, Hamel-Akré follows Cheyne through the pages of medical studies, novels and historical scandals, meeting ash-eating mystics, wasting society girls, impoverished female fasters and early feminist philosophers, all of whom were once grappling with nascent ideas around food, longing and the body. In doing so, she uncovers the eighteenth-century origins of both today's diet culture and her own troubled relationship with wanting. Blending history and memoir, The Art of Not Eating will change the way we look at appetite, desire and rationality, and show how it all got tangled up with what we eat.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Feminism

320 pages, Hardcover

Published August 22, 2024

Reviews

[Poorvi Ammanagi · Rating 2 out of 5]

No. Sorry. Just no. This is disappointing as much as it is disjointed. Please just take this away from me. I first became interested in reading something about appetite when I wanted this lovely YouTube video, I'll link it below... It's much better use of your time. Please watch that. I hate memoirs that are pretending to be "histories" by just talking about some stuff (vague, very doubtful things indeed) in parallel to the author's personal life. I don't want to know how she found Christ and her friend asked her about her political beliefs. It's boring. This book tries and fails to do that "fish don't exist" did well. Non-fiction writers, especially if they have studied a subject for long, forget we don't have a timeline engraved in our heads, that they need to be systematic about the progression of their books and where that information fits in. This is rubbish. Also, what "fishes" did so well is that along with the science, it also gave us a good biography of a deeply brilliant and problematic man, while also showing us how the author was affected by this. Also Dr. Chey is boring.

If you want to write a fucking memoir, just don't it making it into a history book when you won't do it justice. I was so tired about hearing her talk about how her research showed this and that and never actually getting deep into that.

Please watch the video.

https://youtu.be/sGf7M7irujc?si=oYPIt...

[Erica Jeffcott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cons are that it is a bit disjointed and quite vague. It should have been a memoir that inserted points of history… trying to market it as the history of not eating misplaced my expectations and then it was a disappointment because there is very little depth, no real order and it lacks interesting details. It is more about mentioning historical instances of not eating and then how the author feels about herself and fails to connect her feelings to the historical instances she brings up. The vagueness is the real culprit here as it becomes frustrating the more you read and crave real information. The obsession with Dr Cheyne distracted from the point rather than bolstering it as it is clear the author is trying hard to do.

Pros are that the way the author expresses her feelings surrounding diet culture and cultural expectations surrounding food are very relatable and she makes some observations that aren’t really talked about (like the charade of not really eating even in so-called feminist or progressive circles as a signal of morality or goodness). Hamel-Akré has the writing chops to write an excellent memoir so those aspects of the text were compelling!

[Luna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not the book I anticipated it to be when I picked it up. I thought it would be a history of fasting girls and the culture around it. And yes. the book did examine this and the reasons behind they may have begun fasting, but it's more about the start of diet culture and how a woman's appetite has become politicised.

The memoir side of this book did drag me out a little, but I could appreciate reading Hamel-Akré's response to the texts she was examining. I appreciated her remarks on how, when having an interest in eating disorders or similar psychological issues, the immediate response seems to be, well, do you have an eating disorder?. There's no correct answer to that, no way to respond without immediately feeling- and being- judged.

The last chapter fell flat for me; I had expected more. But overall, I did find this book thought provoking and an interesting study on the history of women, appetites, and a complete lack of understanding by medicine.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted this to be good. I was so looking forward to it as well, such a fascinating topic that the author had clearly spent so much time researching, it's a shame it's a terrible book as I'm sure the information she found out was fascinating, but it's not in the book!
There's very little info in here, it's more her internal monologue, her personal experiences and feelings with her body as she researches the topic, the research she has put in is not deep at all.
Instead she talks she's having some sort of love affair with the old physician from long ago, its odd.

Wouldn't recommend reading it, I only got 60% through

[Heleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dense read, with sentences to really chew on before they're ready for digestion. Although I struggled to care about the author's relationship with Dr Cheyne – him as a person, him as an intellectual – I did care about the links she drew to her own lived experience as an academic with an interest in the topic, as a woman and a mother in contemporary society, as a body. I resonated with many observations she made on that personal level, even if the intellectual and historical analyses went a bit over my head.

[Ana Álvarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entretenido, pero sí es confuso el título respecto a lo que verdad se desarrolla: las memorias de la autora enfocadas en sus desórdenes alimenticios. Utiliza como motivo el conocimiento que tiene como historiadora de algunos autores ingleses que plantearon las restricciones dietéticas como "cura" a algunas enfermedades, sobre todo en mujeres. Igual sí me gustó.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd expected a history of diet culture, but instead got a personal memoir. It's funny, because the author mentions her work on the subject, and how she feels when doing talks about it people judge her because she's not made the talk personal enough - but this is nearly all personal.

[Damian Turek · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting stuff, but didn't quite go into enough depth for me and simultaneously was also a bit dry.

[Alexa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another DNF! Too much information on her intimate interpersonal relationships and not enough on the history of 'eating disorders'.

[Amberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mix of history and memoir on the topic of eating disorders. Maybe my expectations were a bit misplaced as I really wanted to learn more about the historical aspects. Overall an informative book I enjoyed but there's other books i'd recommend instead (ahem heavy weight)

[Vivek Tejuja · Rating 4 out of 5]

My relationship with food is a tricky one. In the last couple of years, it has taken a different turn. I eat to fill a void, an emotional longing, dents are made by people or by me. I eat to repair, I eat thinking I will come out whole but I do not. I haven’t for a while now. It is a pity because all the eating just makes me hate the way I look and talk and feel about myself.

I have been asked to lose weight, been told by family, friends, and sometimes even strangers as if I don’t know what I am “supposed” to do. I am not trying to play victim here. Just laying facts.

In all of this, I came across this read: The Art of Not Eating by Jessica Hamel-Akré. The title certainly hit a nerve. The subtitle of this book is “A Doubtful History of Appetite and Desire”. As a fat, gay man, I was drawn to it like moth to a flame. It is more than just the history of diet culture and how it shapes our relationship with hunger. It is also about how Hamel-Akré dealt with desire and food and how the world sees people with desire.

To top this, she delves in the life and times of George Cheyne, an eighteenth-century polymath known as “Dr. Diet”, and how it all connects to the diet fads we follow today. Hamel-Akré writes about the body from such a personal space that it is more than just compelling – you stay with it, and it stays with you. You identify and see yourself in its pages because you know you’ve been shamed too – not just for eating but also to want another body close.

You feel understood once you are done reading this book. You feel someone gets you. It is personal, raw, emotional but not sentimental in its approach, also funny in a way, and quite liberating. I will most certainly go back to this one.