Jessica Recommends Body of Truth

Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight — and What We Can Do about It

Harriet Brown

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Jessica says:

This book utilizes quantitative and qualitative research to explore health through an alternative lens. The author depicts well-being as a dynamic state of mental, physical, and social awareness, rather than solely a person’s weight.

I really enjoyed how this book depicts the Health at Every Size (HAES) movement. The book challenges the notion of how conventional health has been conveyed to the public, and creates a new (evidence-based) space for differences and alternative views. Correspondingly, the book reminds us that what is healthy for me, may not be healthy for you; In addition to the fact that we all have different expectations of our own wellness.

Over the past twenty-five years, our quest for thinness has morphed into a relentless obsession with weight and body image. In our culture, “fat” has become a four-letter word. Or, as Lance Armstrong said to the wife of a former teammate, “I called you crazy. I called you a bitch. But I never called you fat.” How did we get to this place where the worst insult you can hurl at someone is “fat”? Where women and girls (and increasingly men and boys) will diet, purge, overeat, undereat, and berate themselves and others, all in the name of being thin?

As a science journalist, Harriet Brown has explored this collective longing and fixation from an objective perspective; as a mother, wife, and woman with “weight issues,” she has struggled to understand it on a personal level. Now, in Body of Truth, Brown systematically unpacks what’s been offered as “truth” about weight and health.

Starting with the four biggest lies, Brown shows how research has been manipulated; how the medical profession is complicit in keeping us in the dark; how big pharma and big, empty promises equal big, big dollars; how much of what we know (or think we know) about health and weight is wrong. And how all of those affect all of us every day, whether we know it or not.

The quest for health and wellness has never been more urgent, yet most of us continue to buy into fad diets and unattainable body ideals, unaware of the damage we’re doing to ourselves. Through interviews, research, and her own experience, Brown not only gives us the real story on weight, health, and beauty, but also offers concrete suggestions for how each of us can sort through the lies and misconceptions and make peace with and for ourselves.

I write about the things that interest me, from the neurobiology of forgiveness to early childhood education. You can find my work in the New York Times Magazine, O, Prevention, and many other publications. My latest book is BODY OF TRUTH: HOW SCIENCE, HISTORY, AND CULTURE DRIVE OUR OBSESSION WITH WEIGHT–AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT. It’s the result of five years of research into the complex relationships between weight and health, and some of the surprising and life-changing things I learned in the process. Earlier books include BRAVE GIRL EATING: A FAMILY’S STRUGGLE WITH ANOREXIA, two anthologies (FEED ME! and MR. WRONG), and THE GOOD-BYE WINDOW: A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A DAY-CARE CENTER. I teach magazine journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in Syracuse, New York. Find me on Twitter (@HarrietBrown), Facebook, and at harrietbrown.com.

Jessica Recommends Body of Truth

Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight — and What We Can Do about It

Harriet Brown

Jessica says:

From the Publisher

From The Author

About Jessica Zaehringer