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Ryen James

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You, on a Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management

by Michael F. Roizen

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Ryen James said: " I've been trying to read through all of the books I've collected over the years and over the last couple weeks I've been reading through YOU, on a diet, a book I stole from my grandma when I was a kid.

I've always been a fat person and so part of me I've been trying to read through all of the books I've collected over the years and over the last couple weeks I've been reading through YOU, on a diet, a book I stole from my grandma when I was a kid.

I've always been a fat person and so part of me growing up was fascinated by the actually science behind it and this book does go pretty deep into the effects of inflamation caused by obesity, about the hormonal process of cravings and the other various aspects of how your body puts on and takes off weight. As a factually biologically resource I found it useful.

But the more I read this book the more it feels Fatphobic???? Theres a section near the end of the main text of the book that you can sum up as we all know this guy hes a 10, hes funny and successful but hes a fatty fatty 2X4 can't fit through the bathroom door. what gives. And after it just literally assosciates being SKINNY AND SNATCHED with being morally good it asks why do we think about food in this black and white way.

But see heres the thing, this book is a hypocrypt??? The whole book is replete with these contrasting doublets of food. Piles of Snapple or a couple of Apples, Celery or a Fuckload of French Fries, A skinny bitch cheeseburger or a 5 billion carbo-load bloody mary, (I made these up but I'm only exxagerating slightly). It constantly posits food in these extremes with is just bad food language.

We have had a lot of people create food philosophy that is post-modern in a sense. Of discussing how we need to get rid of this binary of Good and Bad foods. Not because the constructs of Healthy or Unhealthy don't exist but because these categories are connected with MORAL WORTH. A discussion thats lead with peopel with ED, (eating disorders), people who have had a differcult relationship with food and need to redefine it outside of toxic diet culture. A culture this book propagates and is a part of.

This book presents itself as an objective tome, A rationalist view of the body. But withing its pages it espouses a midnset geared and curtailed by white middle-class american femininity. So many times during this book does it assume that I.

1. Am a woman (sorry, Dr. OZ I am in fact man)
2. Work in an office, (I actually work as a cook which means that I like most working-class people have a somewhat physically demanding job)
3. Am Monogamous (cause sex only burns calories if your married in the temple under the eyes of the One true god)
4. Am an american and/or eat a diet of mainly fattening american cuisine (this book literally posits that you should avoid "diverse flavors" from cuisines like Mexican and Indian)
5. Am Married with Kids

Now obviously this is a self-help book peddling by a TV doctor to sell to stay at home moms in there 30s but its insulting to the intellect to think that women who feel self-concious have to be so heavily peddled to and infantalized on the subject.

This book is presumingly not outdated on the science but it is outdated in public attitude torwards dieting and reading through this was a bit of a chore at points. It ignores a lot of discussion around Eating Disorders, (probably because this book is written by a Heart Surgeon not somebody quailified like a nutritionlist, dietician, clinical psycologists, or fuck it an addiction specilist), including how not to trigger that type of disordered thinking. It ignores the larger econimic capatalist pressures of diets, (Eating a healthy balance diet requires time and money, and large portions of america live in food desserts without access to affordable fresh produce), and a lot of the more complicated feelings torwards dieting.

Honestly just fuck dr. OZ. ...more "

Mar 20, 2023 01:15PM · see review