Fat Is a Feminist Issue

by Susie Orbach

When it was first published, Fat Is A Feminist Issue became an instant classic and it is as relevant today as it was then. Reflecting on our increasingly diet and body-obsessed society, Susie Orbach's new introduction explains how generations of women and girls are growing up absorbing the eating anxieties around them. In an age where women want to be sexy, nurturing, domestic goddesses, confident at work, and feminine too, the twenty-first-century woman is poorly armed for survival. Never before has the Fat Is A Feminist Issue revolution been more in need of revival.

Exploring our love/hate relationship with food, Susie Orbach describes how fat is about so much more than food. It is a response to our social situation; the way we are seen by others and ourselves. Too often food is a source of anguish, as are our bodies. But Fat Is A Feminist Issue discusses how we can turn food into a friend and find ways to accept ourselves for who and how we are. Following the step-by-step guide, and you too can put an end to food anxieties and dieting.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Psychology, Womens, Health, Self Help, Gender Studies

269 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Dr. Susie Orbach - the therapist who treated Diana, Princess of Wales, for her eating disorders; the founder of the Women's Therapy Center of London; a former columnist for The Guardian; a visiting professor at the London School of Economics; and the author of 1978 best-seller Fat is a Feminist Issue - is, aside from Sigmund Freud, probably the most famous psychotherapist to have ever set up couch in Britain.

Reviews

[Diana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have tried reading this several times. I get that it was "groundbreaking", but when I read it all I hear is the same old fat-hatred/fat-blaming. "But if you REALLY just love your self and let go of your NEED to be fat, then you will magically become thin! Because obviously everyone who is fat really just WANTS to be fat! It's not a diet book--it's an ANTI-diet book! Because it doesn't tell you to diet, see! It just tells you that everyone needs to WANT to be thin--to REALLY REALLY want it, and then the magical santa elf of I-love-myself-and-don't-want-to-be-fat will make it so! Yes!".
NO. I call bullshit. I also say that I don't need to waste my time and energy on trying to read this anymore. I don't care how "groundbreaking" it was supposed to be.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Occasionally you pick up and book and it turns out not to be what you expected. The edition of FIFI that I read actually included a second volume and introductions from 2005 and back, so I assume it's one of the most recent editions. I expected FIFI to be largely academic discourse on fat and feminism, and was surprised by how much it was an overeating self-help book. I wasn't sure I fully appreciated that.

Don't get me wrong, as an overeater I think much of the analysis of overeating rings utterly true with my experience, and obviously in her long history of psychotherapy practice Susie Orbach already knows this. But I did have a problem with some of the approach and terminology.

Particularly in the first book I found myself thinking there was plenty of encouragement to set up self-help groups, but little guidance. This is remedied in the practical follow-up, but it still feels quite vague. Perhaps this is because a group like this should have a qualified leader. So many of the examples given were great, and very positive, but in real life it just seems so unlikely that a random group can keep everyone on the journey and always been practical and supportive. I'm not a mental health professional, but I do think that there is a real skill needed to drive group therapy and ensure it's always positive and action-orientated rather than providing an outlet for discussing issues and then just fixating on them. I thought there was a danger following this (particularly if you do it on your own) that all that will happen is that you'll recognise your fears surrounding fat, and then stop there.

The other problem I had was the feeling that it was about 'losing the weight'. This phrase - and how much do I hate 'the weight' as a phrase? As if it's a separate and specific entity - appears repeatedly and it's almost as if Orbach is guaranteeing that if you free yourself of your overeating demons, you'll just be the thin self you've been afraid of. But that's simply not true. You might lose weight. You might not. You might live a healthier lifestyle. You might not. Self-acceptance is eventually addressed as a key part of making the programme work, but only after frequent reinforcement about people who lost 'the' damn weight. Now obviously the book is about fat and about why we might make ourselves fat, but for some people overeating is only part of why they are the way they are, and they might be healthier, happier and more confident without losing a pound.

Really, I'm glad I read this after Linda Bacon's Health at Every Size, which basically has the same advice (learn to listen to your body's signals and develop a healthy relationship with food again) but from the perspective of NOT thinking about weight and weight loss, which might end up being the outcome and might not. I appreciate the FIFI is about not being afraid to be without a shell of fat, but it too involves accepting the fat - this is much easier to do if you're not thinking 'well, for the time being, anyway'.

Certainly the psychology of FIFI is honest and interesting, and a worthwhile read for anyone with body issues; I do subscribe to the idea that it's women's subordinate role in society that has lead to so many more body issues for them. But the self-help? That's another thing altogether.

[Minna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do not read this book. It is outdated and will probably just make you feel worse about yourself and your body.

I borrowed this book without noticing the undertitle until I added it on GR. The books premise is trying to be helpful and get to the bottom of overeating and overweight, as if they are alway intrinsically linked.

Ironically, the only feminism in this book is from the strangely present chapter on Anorexia Nervosa(!). Only then does the author even acknowledge that fat is stigmatised and not seen as conventionallt pretty or sexy.

Furthermore, the book does stipulate that every woman wants to and can be thin as if it is a natural tabula rasa state, but that we need to keep unhealthy food at home to in a way challenge ourselves to not eat it.

There are way more accurate and body positive books out there who don’t just dismiss antianxiety and antidepressants ar drugging of women and hiding the symptoms.

Now, I will return this moldy tome to the library and suggest that they toss it, due to it’s physical state.

[Zsa Zsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by a trusted Feminist, I took it up thinking it explores the patriarchal effect on being overweight which it was a the beginning. But then it also was an instruction on how to break through that fixed gaze and the broken circle of binge eating and dieting that most of us find ourselves into. It sets you free. Might be better than intuitive eating book.

[Grumpylibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I gave this book four stars I say that with rather significant hesitation: This book (in the original 1979 publication format) struck me as largely irrelevant to women of my generation (Y).

The central thesis of this book is that women are fat as a result of institutionalized patriarchy. Women unconsciously make themselves fat for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, to protect themselves from sexuality, to provide a buffer between their bodies and society, to feel they can succeed in business because they are less objectified. Much of the blame for this behavior is put on the shoulders of mothers who train us, their daughters, to expect less caring, less love, less support, less everything because it is "the lot of a woman."

Why I believe it's irrelevant to my generation? (or at very least to myself?) Woman are still fat today, in 2009. More and more women are fat. Yet our mothers were not slaves to our fathers. Our mothers grew up in the post-WWII era and thus grew up in a time of relative plenty, they grew up in an era of encouraged female post-secondary education, they grew up in a generation where marriage was not necessary, where divorce was not uncommon, and where women were welcome in the workplace.

I do wonder how Orbach would address these issues in today's society, where women like me were raised by feminist single mothers with doctoral degrees, women who always believed they deserved to take up as much or little space as they did, women who encouraged us to be both gentle and loving as well as fierce competitors for jobs, for success, and for ourselves.

[bronberry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was one of the first to talk about women's relationship with fat. There are some parts that are absolutely spot-on with regards to women's relationship with food, dieting, their own bodies and the bodies of other people. I found myself nodding energetically in agreement with these parts of the book. ... then there's the other part of the book; the psychoanalytic part. The psychoanalytic interpretation of fat is appealing because it is intuitive but I believe that this interpretation lacks an empirical basis. I also disagree with the assumption from the author that all women start out thin and then became fat. This progression of thin --> fat is essential for many of the exercises in the book ("imagine yourself as you were thin..."). This is not the case for many women. Ultimately I gave two stars because, although the book encourages women to practise self-compassion and understand the roots of their compulsive behaviour without judgement, the outcome of overcoming compulsive eating for every case that is presented is *always* weight-loss. "When you lose the weight..." is the point driven-home in many forms. We know from the scientific literature that some people lose an insignificant amount of weight when they stop compulsive eating but this is not true in all women and the goal of treatment is *not* to lose weight but to treat the compulsive eating problem. Weight is irrelevant to the primary problem. Overall: The book starts off on the right track but is fundamentally flawed in many of its philosophies.

[Federica ~ Excusetheink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mettiamo di mezzo il cosiddetto 'caso'. Una pagina Instagram ne parla annunciandone la vendita, un'asta eBay che parte da 1€. Me lo sono aggiudicato per 3,50, a fronte dei 49 proposti dalla suddetta pagina. Perché Noi e il nostro grasso (liberissima traduzione di Fat is a Feminist Issue) venne portato in Italia dalla defunta Savelli Editore nel lontanissimo 1979 e dopo di allora mai più ristampato. Quindi è raro, ricercato ed eccezionale è stato il suo arrivo a casa mia e conseguente mio accertamento della validità ancora oggi del testo. Sì, ancora oggi fa paura. In quarantadue anni non è cambiato nulla, qualsiasi sia l'età e la professione si ha sempre la tendenza ad additare il/la ciccion* di turno come semplice mangione. Anche e soprattutto dai medici, che presi altezza e peso distribuiscono diete e raccomandazioni. Non è così, c'è sempre un motivo dietro, una storia, sul perché una persona aumenta di peso. Può essere un senso di inadeguatezza, rabbia, una manovra atta a proteggersi o un episodio del passato che per il soggetto è stato traumatico e punto di partenza per lo schizzare dell'ago della bilancia.
Susie Orbach negli anni '90 era la psicoterapeuta di Lady Diana (per chi ne fosse all'oscuro, la principessa soffriva di bulimia) e nel 2015 ha preso in moglie la scrittrice Jeanette Winterson (Scritto sul corpo, Non ci sono solo le arance). Scelte di vita e padronanza delle parole si fondono in un saggio intriso di desiderio di comunicare quanto appreso inizialmente attraverso un corso di "Alimentazione compulsiva e immagine di se stesse" a cui lei in persona partecipò nel 1970, poi assieme alla curatrice in campo medico. Il risultato è uno dei saggi pionieristici sul grasso ma dal punto di vista interiore, che sicuramente a volume chiuso il lettore sarà in grado di individuare sotto i suoi strati e metabolizzare. Il motivo per cui tantissime diete falliscono oppure si riprendono i kg perduti nel giro di non molto (un altro mio libro indicava cinque anni come tempo sufficiente a verificare se il soggetto rimane o meno magro) è che a livello psicologico la persona obesa lo è anche se dall'esterno si direbbe l'opposto. Le comuni diete non vanno certo ad indagare su ciò che ha portato il paziente ad aumentare di peso no, basta mangiare meno di quel che si consuma! E invece la cosa più importante da estirpare non è la pelle in eccesso ma il motivo che ha spinto l'individuo a trovare riparo sotto il cappotto. Ugual discorso per chi rifiuta il cibo o si alimenta pochissimo, il meccanismo è lo stesso ma risponde in due modi differenti. La Orbach esamina ogni situazione vivisezionandola con racconti delle sue pazienti, esercizi e anche attraverso disegni, per una veloce e completa comprensione.
È incredibilmente attuale perché la magrezza è tutt'oggi accettata in una donna, il perno di tutto quanto. La donna deve essere moglie, madre, massaia, amante MA magra. Fa piacere trovare citato l'italianissimo Dalla parte delle bambine di Elena Gianini Belotti, testo sacro al femminismo per spiegare la condizione in Europa. Un peccato che libri di così grande insegnamento siano trattati come sola merce e non se ne possa sfruttare il potenziale in biblioteca o con internet, a meno che non ve la caviate con l'inglese. Sembra che in tutto il territorio sia disponibile per la consultazione in un'unica biblioteca, e una versione in pdf non esiste. Non fosse per la difficoltà del reperire una seconda copia, è un testo da leggere più e più volte, assimilare, imparare e mettere in pratica. Le diete non servono a nulla se non viene annientata la motivazione che ha portato a questa condizione di obesità/sovrappeso. Susie Orbach quattro decenni in anticipo sul dott. Nowzaradan, che a un certo punto li invia tutti, a ragione, dallo psicologo.
Unica pecca è il font utilizzato, minuscolo e le già ridotte dimensioni del libro rendono impossibile da fotocopiare.
Se lo trovate in giro non commettete l'errore di lasciarlo lì! È una seduta psicologica gratuita, e dimagrirete oppure vi avvicinerete un po' di più al vostro peso forma, garantito da Susie. Io lettrice mangiatrice compulsiva non posso che confermare. Grazie Francesco!

[Yuliya Yurchuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Дуже класна книжка, яка проблеми з переїданням (та взагалі з будь-якими порушеннями харчування) розглядає з точки зору психоаналізу з феміністичним нахилом. Якщо ви їсте за компанію, коли не хочете їсти, коли ви їсте від розпачу, суму, нервів, то ця книжка саме про це! В ній розписують глибинні проблеми, конфлікти, які примушують нас їсти імпульсивно, а потім описується, як ці проблеми можна вирішити. Все це робиться на прикладі реальних жінок, які самі проходили психоаналіз в групах жінок, організрваних авторкою, щоб вирішити проблеми з порушеннями харчування. Результат такого підходу - відмова від будь-яких дієт, прийняття себе і своїх конфліктів і пошук шляху їх вирішення не через їжу. Дуже класна книжка, один словом. Є свої нюанси, з якими я не дуже погоджуюся, бо це таки книжка свого часу - тобто 1970х, і в основному працює для жінок, які виросли в моделі "ідеальних" 1950-х з дуже вираженою патріархальною моделлю, але (що ще цікавіше) навіть в наші (наче) емансиповані 2000-і жінки стикаються майже з усіма тими ж проблемами, тому виходить, що не з однією емансипацією все пов'язано, таки ж дуже глибокі конфлікти з дитиства, які, мабуть, примушують страждати не лише жінок, але і чоловіків (авторка дуже цікаво описує, як відносини з матір'ю і з батьком в дитиинстві можуть на все життя закласти наші звички їсти).

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up thinking that this would look at the relationships between food and dieting and the use of these to control women's bodies and lives, a concept that has been touched upon in some of the other literature I've read. But it wasn't really that. This does start out looking at this but then it shifts focus to the reasons behind compulsive eating and how to break these habits. The advice and exercises are interesting but I did feel that there was a lot of focus on being slim and some quite substantial assumptions that in controlling compulsive eating everyone can be slim. I kind of expected more of a focus on acceptance of body size and shape and listening to its needs rather than slim-ness being the end goal.

[Rebeka · Rating 1 out of 5]

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

[Aisling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn’t quite what I expected and more self-help then I anticipated but still an interesting critique of diet culture, ‘the fetish of the female form’, ‘food and the body as an arena in which women have become allowed to express themselves, food and the body as a language we communicate with’ and the ‘interplay between our bodies and what we allow them to have’ as women

[Lily Kauffman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very outdated and the general thesis of the book is troubling.

[YL · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a practical manual, Orbach's text is dated (it's subtitle in many editions was -- 'a self-help guide for compulsive eaters). But nonetheless, "Fat is a Feminist Issue" remains a keystone in the history of the way bodies have been constructed in American culture. It is surprising, but Orbach was the first to bring a psychoanalytic view of the body to mainstream American culture through this book.

In psychoanalytic terms, Orbach's central claim in this book is that obesity and dieting (and compulsive eating & anorectia) are symptoms of a mismatch between one's "true" self and one's "false" self. Or as Orbach restates many times through the book, in less clinical terms -- sometimes, oftentimes, women are fat because of an unconscious desire to be fat. The fat self is a sort of protection against the vulnerable true self that isn't fat. Orbach's revolutionary cure is to somehow reconcille the two selfs.

I bring up the language of "true" and "false" self because I think, even though she doesn't explicitly pay homage, Orbach's theory and method both must be significantly influenced by Winnicott's in "Ego Distortion in Terms of the True and False Self" (From The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment). In this paper, Winnicott argues that the false self arises in the earliest instances from a failure on the part of the mother to adequately respond to the child. Orbach gives an example (110), of a mother who responds to her child's distress in general by giving it food via the nipple. And it is at this point that Orbach both borrows from and extends Winnicott's issue. The development of a body that eats and eats may have come from the struggling efforts of an inadequate mother, but that mother -- the mother who responds to distress with her own form of unthinking distress -- is herself the victim of a culture that often fails to value women except as a sort of body.

Thus the solution that Orbach offers (in "self-help") is also essentially Winnicottean. Stabilizing at a normal weight (or losing weight), for Orbach is not about the right diet or the right habit, but a psychicological reorganization (in her case facilitated by group theropy). It is about the gradual letting go of fantasies of thinness & fatness to face one's reality as a person with a certain body. It is about letting go of, in Winnicottean terms, the fantasy of omnipotence embodied in strict dietary regimens (eating this & not that -> being this & not that).

This is a great book, well argued, and not overly clinical, but nonetheless rigorous and a great introduction to a psychoanalytic way of thinking.

[Anastasia Alén · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some things in this book went over my head (even if I tried to catch them :D) What I mean is that some things in FIFI were really out of date (probably because this was written in 70s...) and also I think some philosophies were flawed. That is why I'm only giving this book two stars.

However! this book makes A LOT of good points & I think this is good read for overweight or self-starving women and I think this book also has a sense of history to it. Also, it shows how scary the dieting industry was/is (as is I guess food industry and all the other big industries)

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will piss you off, and then it will set you free.

[Caroline Geer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Orbach made some great points about the socialization of women. However, the book's central logic that to be thin is normal and to be fat is pathological runs throughout these genuine insights crucial to feminism then and now. One of the book's other main themes was psychoanalysis, which was weird. I'm excited to write my precis on this book—lots to say.

[Charley Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a hard book to rate because it's so specific to opening a support group and i have no interest in that. I did enjoy the analytical aspect of the first half of the book but yeah..i was definitely the wrong audience for a lot of it

[Jolien Stammes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot from this book! Although it is sometimes a bit repetitive, the many examples are nice .

[Arwen Greenwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

I went in to this book with an entirely different idea to what it was about, like many people who have written reviews here. The title eludes to a fascinating prose on views of fat through a gender/social lends. Instead the title is only a vague tie-in to what the book is actually about: compulsive eating self-help groups.

Fat does not equal compulsive eating.

Just because you have a BMI above 25 (medical definition of overweight at present) doesn’t not mean that it is caused by overeating. That can play a part, but factors like biological makeup (only briefly touched here and dismissed) and food poverty (which is a major problem especially in children obesity and is not even mentioned) also contribute.

Compulsive eating does not equal fat.

You can have a compulsive eating disorder but manage to keep your weight at a society accepted level. Reasons for this could be the severity of the compulsive eating or binging, intense exercise and self-induced vomiting - which leads to the serious eating disorder Bulimia Nervosa.

The books sample of women is also very restrictive. It’s not mentioned but it very much gives the feels of white American middle class women. These are not the only women to have compulsive eating problems, AND eating disorders in men are often missed and misdiagnosed and you could probably write a whole separate chapter on how women=weak=excused for having an eating disorder, men=strong=no possible way to have an eating disorder.

I also didn’t like the chapter on medical views. Not only are the references to obesity research outdated, but it only painted the picture of the dominate judging male doctor who only tells you to diet or to take the latest wonder pile. Maybe that is acurate in America, but in the UK doctors are TRAINED to try to be as un-judgemental as possible (they’re only human).

I’ll finish on a nice note about what I actually liked: the discussion into compulsive eating as a coping mechanism for an array of issues (depends on the individual) and exercises/talking points about how to create new coping mechanisms that don’t focus on food. (Taking away someone’s coping mechanism, however self-harmful it is, is not good).

[Hilary Miller-Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very powerful and helpful exploration of how disordered eating, including compulsive eating and anorexia are inextricably linked with womens' position as second class citizens, and the role of the socialisation of women in eating practices.

It provides a good mix of practical support which women can implement to address complexities in their relationship with food, and the theory behind that complicated relationship. Theories include the rejection of femininity, complicated mother-daughter relationships as a result of mothers teaching their children to adapt to a patriarchal society and restrictive eating, fear, and archetypal conceptions of women of different weights.

[Rachel Kidd · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really struggled with this book. I've read a few other really good books that refer to it in 'glowing terms' so I really wanted to read it and expected it to totally change how I think! Needless to say this wasn't the case.

In some ways I think it is just out of date (it was written in the 70s) so a lot of it I just couldn't relate to at all.

Also it firmly states that people are fat because it benefits them in some way and the 'fat' person is scared of being thin. Well I have been both overweight and very slim (more than once!) and I enjoyed being slim much more than being overweight!

Sadly, I just overeat and there wasn't much in the book to deal with that (unless you bought into her theories). I skim read the last of it. Disappointed.

[Pink · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was okay, but it wasn't quite what I thought it might be. There were some considerations on how fat is viewed in society and how we should see this as a feminist issue, but mostly I found this to be a self help diet book to cure binge eating. Plus I thought it was quite sexist, which I was not prepared for, though I guess things have moved on somewhat since the 1970s.

[Lucy Ramsdale]

Tw: eating disorders.
Tried to read as a book of its time (70s, 1st edition) and ignore the fatphobic moralising. Definitely a interesting feminist meditation of compulsive eating and feminine embodiment and (maybe??) one of the first to examine structural forces at play in women’s compulsive eating. Definitely think the book grossly generalises ‘womanhood’, and could be more intersectional. I’d like to think of ‘fatness’ not as a deficiency that is structurally prevalent amongst ‘women’s bodies’ like Orbach does here, but as women’s, fat, non-white, disabled, and poor bodies all as Other to the thin, white, male, middle-class body which is the proposed ideal. Maybe I’d be receptive to a scrutiny like Orbach’s if she wasn’t so didactic??

[Strawberry Witch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like “compulsive eating” better than “binge eating disorder,” personally.

Anyway, I read this book awhile ago but it’s taken me decades to put it into practice. The basic premise is that if you just chill the fuck out about it and re-learn your hunger and satiety cues, you’ll be good to go and you’ll stop wanting to binge and your weight will settle down. Which it will.

It tells you to try and figure out why you’re fat in the first place. Speaking from personal experience, I once put on 60 pounds bc I was in an unhappy relationship where my sexual needs weren’t being met so I put on weight so I wouldn’t be tempted to cheat. The author talks about weight and sexuality and our mothers and a bunch of shit that makes some sense.

I didn’t like all the feminist bullshit (I ate a cookie every time she said “the patriarchy”), but the advice is sound.

I think a lot of the body positive people who read this from a contemporary viewpoint would be angry and call it “fatphobic,” bc it factually correlates eating to excess with excess weight.

[marieostin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Мені цю книгу порадила психотерапевтка. Довелося дуже багато аналізувати та осмислювати. Думок багато і хотілось б почути інших людей з РХП та їх враження. Одразу скажу: книга неоднозначна, але цікава

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very much a book of its time and has to be read as such. It's not a work of fat activism or even body positivity. But it is instructive in what it says about the relationships that women have with their bodies and with the rest of the world, and how those relationships interplay. In many ways, it's depressing how much of what Orbach has to say still holds true today, 45 years after this book was first published

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read with lots of relevance still, but should be seen as a historical resource - it is outdated

[Sharon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this up blindly as part of an online order. As someone who has only recently become acquainted with the notion of body positivity, I had heard Susie Orbach's name mentioned and wanted to read something by her.

This is a combination of two books, first published in 1978 and 1982 respectively. It promises "an updated" version, complete with "new introduction".

I very much enjoyed the new introduction - Susie speaks about the diet industry and its success depending on the failure of its customers; about unrealistic expectations placed on women from early childhood; about the media pressures and online pressures facing young women today - I marked a lot of passages for re-reading, it spoke to me.

However.

I then got to the first book, and was greeted with an outdated account of the role of women in society. If you plan on never having children - good luck, because you won't find anything here. The notion that "we are fat because of the patriarchy" isn't completely nonsensical, I can see why weight could be used as a shield in order to not be objectified or to succumb to the notion of the "ideal female body". That, I get. I don't agree with the theory that we are fat because of our mothers - either we're fat because we need them, we're fat because we no longer need them, or we're fat to spite them. I say "theory" - but here, it's presented as fact. You are fat because of your relationship with your mother. You are fat because you compulsively over eat (don't get me wrong, some of the over-eating talk did ring true, I know all too well that eating when I'm not hungry is a massive habit of mine).

I finally put it down when I realised that the second book was all about overcoming compulsive overeating - and when the author described women over 250lbs as "extremely large". I've been over 250 lbs. I was almost 18 stone and a UK size 20 (US 16). I knew I was big but to be labelled "extremely large" was embarrassing and made me feel like it was my fault because I secretly wanted to be fat.

While, yes, there were rare moments of insight, I'm not looking for a self help book that will make me overcome bad eating habits to ultimately achieve "the dream" - losing and maintaining a lower weight. If you are, maybe this would suit you. I was looking for an interesting look at how being fat is seen, or how society treats fat women as if they're less intelligent, less worthwhile, lesser women. I wasn't looking at "it's not your FAULT! YOU CAN CHANGE!".

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I have heard mentioned every now and then for many years and I have always wanted to know what the book was about. So when I saw a cheap used copy I couldn't resist buying it to find out.

I'm somewhat overweight and have many serious health problems, which contribute to my weight issues in a number of ways. I didn't expect to relate so much to the different reasons that I could be choosing to stay overweight, but after reading this book I now have no doubt that at least part of my inability to maintain a healthier weight is not physical.

I'm a feminist, of course. (I don't understand at all any woman who wouldn't want to be identified as a feminist, someone who supports equal rights for men and women, and who find the term cringe-worthy. It is only a terrible term if you believe all the anti-feminist and status quo supporting media and propaganda and so on, surely?) But I was surprised in reading this book how much of it really hit home with me, but how little any of it had to do with my gender or with feminism!

Not all the possible reasons for staying overweight had to do with feminism, as the title of this book may suggest. In fact, the vast majority of them did not. Some of the parts which did have to do with gender, such as mother-daughter competitiveness issues, I didn't relate to at all, possibly because they the book is very dated. (My mother has always worked and so doesn't envy my ability to work, for example.)

Some of the book is very dated, but it is easy enough to skip over those parts and to spend time contemplating the more timeless concepts. I'd very much recommend this book for men dealing with high or low weight issues, as well as women. It is a classic and you're sure to gain some real insight into your unconscious thoughts and actions by reading it.

This book provides lots of food for thought!

Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.