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Starved: A Nutrition Doctor's Journey from Empty to Full
"Failure to thrive" is not a phrase in this doctor's vocabulary.
At the age of four, Anne McTiernan is left by her mother at a boarding school. Overcome by sadness from the neglect she experiences there, Anne emotionally and physically starves. A doctor, appalled by her excessive weight loss, forces Anne’s mother to bring her home, but she is still not safe.
Set in working-class, Irish-American Boston of the 1950s–1960s, Anne transitions from a malnourished state to obesity to obsessive dieting. Without love and support from her family, Anne decides she must take full responsibility for her own life during her last eighteen months as a minor.
Today as a doctor and researcher, Anne has helped thousands of women improve their relationship with food—but this is not their story. Starved is the gripping tale of how Anne used hard work, undaunted intelligence, and persistence to turn the adversity she encountered as a child into a strength and set of skills that would later help her meet the demands of her career.
ANNE McTIERNAN, MD, PhD , conducts research on the effects of diet, exercise, and weight loss on cancer and health. Currently, she is a professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington Schools of Public Health and Medicine in Seattle, Washington.
At the age of four, Anne McTiernan is left by her mother at a boarding school. Overcome by sadness from the neglect she experiences there, Anne emotionally and physically starves. A doctor, appalled by her excessive weight loss, forces Anne’s mother to bring her home, but she is still not safe.
Set in working-class, Irish-American Boston of the 1950s–1960s, Anne transitions from a malnourished state to obesity to obsessive dieting. Without love and support from her family, Anne decides she must take full responsibility for her own life during her last eighteen months as a minor.
Today as a doctor and researcher, Anne has helped thousands of women improve their relationship with food—but this is not their story. Starved is the gripping tale of how Anne used hard work, undaunted intelligence, and persistence to turn the adversity she encountered as a child into a strength and set of skills that would later help her meet the demands of her career.
ANNE McTIERNAN, MD, PhD , conducts research on the effects of diet, exercise, and weight loss on cancer and health. Currently, she is a professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington Schools of Public Health and Medicine in Seattle, Washington.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 9, 2019
McTiernan's upbringing was not a happy one: she was raised by a single mother in Irish-Catholic Boston in the 1950s, when single parenting carried even more of a social stigma than it does today, and her mother was clearly and vocally unhappy with the role she found herself in. McTiernan learned young to read her mother's moods; she learned young, too, that she needed her mother far more desperately than her mother needed her. Sent to a series of Catholic boarding schools from a very young age (because her mother and her aunt, who lived with them, both worked, but also perhaps because her mother was not invested in finding a way to keep them all together), McTiernan was treated well at school but nonetheless withered away to nearly nothing in her desperation to be home with her family.
Starved reads in some ways like a cross between Pieces of My Mother and The Light in the Window: some of the religious austerity and poverty of 1950s Ireland plus a mother unprepared for the reality and responsibility of motherhood. McTiernan succeeded far better than might have been expected, earning numerous degrees and building a happy family of her own, but her childhood haunted her for a long time. She repeatedly refers to her time as a boarder as 'institutionalisation', which is fascinating to me; without meaning to put a label on someone else's experience, it sounds to me like the sort of thing where if it had been a happier time for her it could just as easily have been called a boarding school experience.
The subtitle calls out McTiernan's eventual career as a doctor with a focus on nutrition, but the detailed material is all about her earlier years, up through the end of high school. The chain of events that led her to medical school are summed up in brief at the end. Although it makes sense for the sake of space (it's a full-length book as it is), I'd have loved to see stories from her work, with or without clear ties to her childhood. If she's so inclined, I suspect there's material enough for another book.
Starved reads in some ways like a cross between Pieces of My Mother and The Light in the Window: some of the religious austerity and poverty of 1950s Ireland plus a mother unprepared for the reality and responsibility of motherhood. McTiernan succeeded far better than might have been expected, earning numerous degrees and building a happy family of her own, but her childhood haunted her for a long time. She repeatedly refers to her time as a boarder as 'institutionalisation', which is fascinating to me; without meaning to put a label on someone else's experience, it sounds to me like the sort of thing where if it had been a happier time for her it could just as easily have been called a boarding school experience.
The subtitle calls out McTiernan's eventual career as a doctor with a focus on nutrition, but the detailed material is all about her earlier years, up through the end of high school. The chain of events that led her to medical school are summed up in brief at the end. Although it makes sense for the sake of space (it's a full-length book as it is), I'd have loved to see stories from her work, with or without clear ties to her childhood. If she's so inclined, I suspect there's material enough for another book.
March 19, 2018
This bio of groundbreaking cancer researcher (and Fred Hutch Seattle doctor) Anne McTiernan's childhood is not easy to read. Not violent, but the story of a little girl born to a single mom and very unhappy woman's life in the 1950's in Boston. Dr. McTiernan also specializes in the ways diet and exercise can help with cancer prevention and healing.
What this book made me think of most of all, was that there were never any good old days, just the constancy of a world where there are kind people and troubled, mean people and how a child of often expected to navigate the most difficult circumstances.
What this book made me think of most of all, was that there were never any good old days, just the constancy of a world where there are kind people and troubled, mean people and how a child of often expected to navigate the most difficult circumstances.
January 12, 2017
A heartfelt memoir of a child who against all odds was able to build a life for herself and the role that food plays in all our lives. If you've ever struggled with food (and what woman in America hasn't?) you'll be incredibly moved by this story.
February 21, 2017
I might need to reread this - I feel shellshocked and overwhelmed. If one could choose their family - I'd want Anne McTiernan front and center. Tears keep coming and words are failing me. Thank you for sharing your amazing journey Anne McTiernan.
January 16, 2018
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This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 5, 2022
I am torn on what exactly I think about this book. Well written and the story of her childhood is heartbreaking. What left me unsettled was a veiled sense of fatphobia I got throughout the book. The way she referenced body size and eating habits feels old school and problematic at times. Even her summary of her relationship with food in adulthood that she included at the end of the book left me with an uneasy feeling. I hope the author discusses these topics with her patients with care and compassion.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews