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

by Harriet Brown

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Psychology, Science, Self Help, Food, History

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2015

Reviews

[La Petite Américaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

UPDATE: 9/10/19: Someone do me a favor and tweet this at Harriet Brown:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm4TAdi...

Thank you. 😊

***

**I actually feel like deleting this. I shouldn't be giving this $%$# the free publicity. Ugh, you're welcome, Harriet.**

And then along came this book, where Harriet Brown has morphed from "curer of eating disorders" to den mother of the Fat Acceptance movement. Unlike her last book, at least now Brown is trying to do something good: she encourages body diversity, shares personal stories of her struggles with weight, and gives life to the pain suffered by those who are fat-shamed.

The attempt is there. It's just that the way she goes about it that makes me want to burn something.

Brown's basic claim is that Americans need to stop trying to lose weight because there is nothing unhealthy about being overweight or obese (cue the mental gymnastics of fat logic).

And in typical Harriet Brown-style manipulation, she backs up her ideas with "research," then juxtaposes her findings with traumatic, first-person vignettes by women who have struggled with weight and body image issues.

Well fuck me running. Oh, but I shouldn't make references to running, lest I be fat-shaming. Where was I?

Ah yes, Harriet backs up her ideas about obesity being perfectly healthy with the biggest data dump I've ever seen.

Of course.

Look, Harriet.

You can't just drop a bunch of out-of-context quotes from outdated publications, statistics from studies shunned by the country's leading medical experts, and inaccurate factoids from Jezebel.com, then footnote it all, and call it "research." I would have failed one of my freshman comp students for less. (I did, come to think of it).

Know why?

Because that's not research.

Real researchers -- you know, the kind paid by universities, publishing houses, corporations, et. al. -- don't hunt around for a bunch of inaccurate, random data points for the sole purpose of supporting their ideas. That's the kind of cherry-picking "research" that the likes of Chuck C. Johnson and 9/11 conspiracy theorists living in mom's basement do. If professional researchers did that, the result wouldn't be research.

It would be a self-serving, unethical distortion of reality.

Kind of like your book.

Oh, wait. Was that my out loud voice?

And this is what I love about Harriet Brown: She can go lower than the slimiest bottom-feeder, so long as some published opinion somewhere supports her own. Some adjunct professor at the University of Hawaii contradicts the leading medical experts at Harvard? Hawaii it is! A 20 year-old study saying diabetes is not linked to obesity? Run it! A dubious study (widely criticized by America's obesity specialists) claiming that it's not unhealthy to be obese? Go with it! We're in Harriet Brown Land now, where academics, doctors, and experts are all wrong, and the quacks on the fringes who can't get their studies published are now the authority on all things healthy-fat.

This is why you don't let someone with an MFA in Creative Writing position herself as a "science writer." (Are you listening, New York Times?)

Well.

When you've got pages upon pages of questionable data, it makes it impossible to argue with an author. It's like trying to debate a schizophrenic's word salad.

Since I don't have 6 months to sift through Brown's half-truths, I will say that I think this woman is dangerous, her logic is flawed, and she needs a serious attitude change.

But don't take it from me. Here are a few zingers for your enjoyment.

1. "[She needed to] give up the fantasy of being thin...let go of the idea...that she would lose the weight and keep it off." Yes. Because losing weight and keeping it off is a fantasy. Well, now, that's encouraging.

2. "When we can't skip a day at the gym, we sacrifice the chance to get a graduate degree, learn a language, acquire career skills, develop relationships..."
Well, that's funny because I have a graduate degree, speak two foreign languages, have great career skills, have lots of rewarding relationships...and I work out almost every day. What the FUCK? So taking 30-60 minutes a day to be healthy interferes with life, Harriet? What an awesome way to see the world.

3. "I'm not a fan of fast or processed food...I haven't drunk soda...since I was sixteen, and I prefer water to juice and other caloric drinks. I eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, nuts, dairy, fish, chicken, and whole grains."
:)
>>cough cough bullshit cough cough<<
Hey, Harriet, remember on page 1 where you said you had friends over and you were "eating lemon poppy seed cake"? Remember how on page 3 you said your family members commented that you were "eating [yourself] into an early grave"?
Remember page 59, where you say "most of us under-report what we've eaten"?
Maybe instead of just giving up on a healthy diet and exercise (and encouraging others to do so with you), you should view food not as "love and community and ritual that...binds us to other people more often than sex," and see it more as going from hungry to full in the least destructive way possible. Maybe skip the lemon poppy seed cake, too. But that's just me.

4. "We certainly know that men find a range of women's body sizes attractive...and that men are attracted to women with curvy rather than ultrathin bodies. And we also know that lesbians and bisexual women are attracted to curvy women who are heavier than social norms dictate."
Sigh.
The use of the collective "we," -- another amateur mistake worthy of a college freshman in Comp 101. A sweeping claim about all straight men and bi/lesbian women, based on a single poll conducted by a British magazine in 2012. And a little swipe at thin people for good measure. Fuck -- really??
This is Harriet Brown at her best.

I wouldn't be so pissed off at Brown if she weren't taking such an important topic, twisting it to fit her needs, and spouting dangerous information. I can't argue with her without writing a book of my own, but I can inject a little common sense to counter the crazy:

--No, Harriet, when a doctor tells a patient to lose weight, it's not fat-shaming, nor is it a conspiracy between doctors and big pharma to make money off of the obese. Obesity specialists (you know, the doctors who wouldn't speak with you for your book--ever wonder what that could mean?) are not out to get you. Despite the obscure medical studies you managed to dig out, the legit studies (that you happily dismiss) link obesity to diabetes, 10 types of cancer, and a host of other illnesses.

--Yes, Harriet, there are plenty of people who are overweight and exercise. You were practically giddy to conclude that because your New York Times pal Steven Blair runs a few miles a day and is still overweight, he's fat and healthy.

Sigh.

Know why he's overweight, Harriet? His body has adapted to running and he eats too much. You can run a marathon a day and still be overweight if you eat too much. Especially if you've got a desk job. Especially if you're over 30.
Does it mean that an overweight person who exercises is healthy? Welllllllll....I could run up to 10 miles a day even when I was a pack-a-day smoker. What do you think? Was I healthy when, after a vigorous 10-mile run, I lit up and puffed away on cigarette number 14?

--Yes, Harriet, you can judge health by body size. You can safely assume that an obese person struggling to make it up a flight of stairs is less healthy than a skinny marathoner. I can safely assume that the smoker who runs 10 miles a day is as unhealthy as the overweight, lemon poppy seed cake-eating author who doesn't exercise enough.
Don't believe me? Look at official death rates linked to obesity and stop waving around some study you found at the bottom of a desk drawer at FU University.
What you can't discern from body size are strength and endurance. That's about it.

--Sorry to break it to you, Harriet, but the doctors saying weight is our personal responsibility are correct. I know you like to cite other contributing factors--illnesses that affect 1% of the population, poverty (whole grain pasta was 50 cents a box the last time I checked), and pollutants--and in some cases, you might be right. I know you also love to divorce all personal responsibility from eating disorders, but in the end, whether people are anorexic or overweight, what they do or don't put into their bodies comes down to personal choice. Your body size is your own responsibility. It sucks. Deal with it.

--Yes, Harriet, exercise is hard, and eating right is harder. I'm glad you're on some body-acceptance kick, but packaging it as "fat is healthy" is dangerous and wrong. I wish you would read Born to Run, quash your food fears, do away with your pathological denial, and fall in love with endurance exercise. It's what the human body is meant to do. Maybe then you wouldn't assume that every normal-sized person is some religious dieter living a rigid, miserable life of deprivation and physical torture.

Or perhaps it's easier to live in Harriet Brown's magical version of reality, where it's perfectly healthy to be obese, where she has zero role in causing her daughter's eating disorder, and the unicorns dance about with the Easter Bunny and conduct "research" in their spare time.

Oh, but wait, the book. The book review.

Sorry, I got sidetracked.

It's just a bunch of repurposed, self-plagiarized articles Brown wrote for the New York Times and the Atlantic. Read one of those instead and save yourself the time, the mental anguish, and the $15.

Or, try it Harriet's way. Read the book. Disregard the medical experts. Forgo healthy eating. Don't worry about exercise. See what happens.

I'll be off pricing headstones for you.

Either way...

SUCKED.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

ARC for review.


Brown, like most women in America, started agonizing over her weight while she was still in her teens and this continued for a large portion of her adult life. Then she had a daughter diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and as she sat in the ICU she quickly realized that thing does not always equal healthy (this despite the fact that her daughter would get compliments on her svelte figure even from acquaintances who knew she was suffering from anorexia). So, since thin ISN'T always good, perhaps it followed that overweight does not always equal lack of health. She then spent years exploring the issue and came to several conclusions.

As Brown notes, "in a culture so entrenched in the fat-is-bad/thin-is-good dichotomy" we often forget to be objective observers. According to Brown, as many scientific studies debunk this notion as support it (and she lists them and goes into detail about their findings, something those on the other side often fail to do), and often the researchers doing such studies are financially supported by the diet industry, which relies on repeat customers to make a profit.

As we've heard a million times, most diets don't work and less than 5% of those who lose a large amount of weight keep it off over three years....and, anecdotally, for those few who do it becomes the primary focus of their lives, "what some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease." (Alexander Pope).

In fact, what studies seem to show is that it is physical inactivity, versus pounds themselves that are a best barometer for health and the "healthiest" (least likely to die of the diseases most often linked to weight) are those who fall in the "overweight" category of the BMI tables, versus "normal". She also notes that weight is a very individualized issue, yet the medical industry has always promoted a "lose weight and everything will be better" one-size-fits-all approach, when what is healthy for me, might not be healthy for you and vice versa.

Brown offers no advice but is a voice of sanity in today's anti-fat world, exhorting the public to use common sense and unveiling bias where it exists. I hope this well-written, well-documented and interesting book finds a large audience. When you consider how the latest diet book is always on the top ten bestsellers list, it's worth a moment to take a broad look at this controversial subject.

Part of Book Riot's 2015 Read Harder challenge.

[Sherrill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every woman needs to read this book, every mother needs to talk about this with her daughters. It has helped me begin to learn to accept my body the way it is, without always having the idea that I need to lose 20 lbs. It really does make me feel better to know that I am not hurting my health. I know I will still continue to make good food choices, but I am stepping away from the scale. It's really not the outside that matters, but the inside of me.

Thank you Harriet Brown!!!

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could replace the contents of every diet book out there with the text of this book. Thoroughly researched, readable, and scientifically sound. So glad I read it!

[Antonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the record: (1) I'm not really into self-help books. But I am into sound investigative journalism and thoughtful, elegant writing about the issues of nutrition, diet, health, and body image; (2) I’m not overweight (though I have been) but have inherited all the wight-and-health stereotypes, distorted thinking, and self-critical attitudes common among women in this country for the past 100 years or so.

This is a remarkable book. Brown writes about the pervasive stigmatization and bullying of those who are “overweight,” the conflation of weight talk and health talk that pervades our culture, and the damage done to all of us, especially young people, by a focus on weight at the expense of health. Our attitudes and what we think we know about obesity are underlain by a complex web of relationships involving the medical establishment, advertising, and the diet industry, for starters. And what is “overweight” exactly? Who gets to decide what normal weight is? It’s pretty interesting that people who have a little extra actually live longer than the so-called normals. And yet, half of the women who took one Esquire magazine poll said they’d rather be dead than fat. (Aside; My sister and I didn’t know about that survey when, years ago, we came up with the t-shirt slogan, “Better fat than dead.”) This book is packed full of startling statistics and is well documented with numerous studies; yet, it’s eminently readable, clear, engaging, and studded with life stories of women whose lives have been ruled by, sometimes ruined by, crazy cultural expectations and devastating obsession about body size. The facts are just mind-boggling. This is a book that will, and should, make you angry and, hopefully, lead you to reconsider the relationship between weight and health, between food and fear, and to realize how the rhetoric around weight has shaped the way we think and the way we treat one another. And perhaps, it will also lead you to a healthier way of thinking, as well as of eating and enjoying life.

The copious footnotes, links (I read an electronic edition), and bibliography will probably keep me busy for quite some time.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. The author shares what she's learned in a decade of examining research on weight, obesity, eating disorders, etc., as well as from interviewing hundreds of women and scientists. The reality is this: our society is completely obsessed with weight. And though the media and doctors tend to go on certain "truths" as givens, those are not necessarily true or even based on solid research. Weight is a very complex matter, and we still know far too little about how best to regulate it. We certainly know far too little about how to help people lose weight and keep it off "for good." A big problem with encouraging people to lose weight, even for their health (which is a whole other complex ball of wax: what the studies show in reality is that those who skew heavier actually tend to live longer!), is that those who diet almost always eventually gain the weight back, and when they diet again, they gain that back and more. And then their metabolisms are slower than before. Pretty depressing, no?
How about this? We accept that people come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. We encourage people to be healthy, as in eating mostly healthy foods and exercising. Particularly exercising. And we stop worrying about size or numbers on a scale. And we stop judging ourselves and others for failing to look a certain way. It's a crazy concept in our current predicament as a culture, but maybe we can work towards it. Now that would be a revolution, even a revelation.

Read my full review, including a rating for content, at RatedReads.com: https://ratedreads.com/body-truth-obs...

[Kris Springer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tell it like it is, Harriet Brown. Truth to power--truth to the notion that only thin people are worthwhile and good, while people who are overweight or obese are less than, less smart, less virtuous, etc. After a lifetime of hearing women (including myself) shame themselves and each other about food, diet, clothes, I'm angry and exhausted. People can't get healthier (eat better, exercise, respect themselves) if they're expected to feel shame at the same time. Every woman and man with body issues needs to read this book--no--scratch that--everyone needs to read this book, and even the most skeptical readers need to check Brown's research and check their assumptions. There needs to be a much bigger discussion in our society about it not being okay to talk about people's weight--it's bullying and it's hatred, and it has no place here.

[Chris Torretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy… there is so much in this book! I cannot believe how much I am loving every word.

Firstly, it is quite apparent that Harriet Brown is a genius! She talks about so many of the issues that families are facing today. Including dieting and getting down to the brass tacks of just how scary eating is! Who knows what we are supposed to eat!

One conversation with my mom was about eggs. She said that studies showed that we should eat eggs. This was, of course, after studies showing that we should NOT eat eggs.

The thing that I love most about this book is that Harriet Brown tackles these ideals. WHY are we dieting?! Why are we trying to be so skinny, at the detriment to our health?! It is not healthy for us to constantly always worry about the extra pounds.

And what really, REALLY floored me is that she talks about fat and the studies surrounding fat. NO where does a study really show that fat actually helps to produce diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

WHAT?!

For the past four years I have been on my husband’s back about losing weight. The funny thing, he has more stamina than I do. His back does hurt a lot because all of his weight is in his belly but he can walk longer than I can and I’m supposed to be at my ideal weight.

Needless to say, this book got me really thinking. What is correct? When should we listen to our doctors? Are our doctors just giving us lip service and telling us what they have heard after years and years but on reports that have no real backup?!

What do we do?

Fortunately, Harriet gives us a few ways of combating these issues. Something that I’ve been coming to terms with for myself over the past few years. Maybe it is not the FAT on our bodies that is causing the problem. Maybe it is how we treat that fat. How we feel about that fat, and in extension ourselves! We have to take control and love ourselves.

I exercise because I want to tone not because I could probably lose another ten pounds. I’m happy with those extra ten pounds. I feel good! I am finally thinking that I look good! When will we start accepting ourselves for the way we are? Our bodies know, now it’s time for our heads to realize.

Absolutely recommend this book for so many reasons! Healthy, brilliant, and really eye opening!

[Bridgett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read Harriet Brown's new book for some eye-opening truths about weight, weight loss, and all the studies about the dangers of obesity and overweight. As someone who was bulimic for years, I am buoyed by the truth that good health comes in all sizes.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had family members making snide or veiled comments about my weight for years. I'm on medication where one of the side effects is weight gain, and yet I feel those who are making the comments would prefer that I be thin and miserable rather than "fluffy" and happy. This book confirms that you can be shaped differently from a stick-thin model and still be healthy, and that those who brag about their zero to less than five percent body fat/nonfat diet/drug-popping for xyz "risks" may not be as knowledgeable about things as they think they are

[Kay Steenerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a 77 year old woman who thought she knew everything about weight control. I won't go into the details, but when I say everything that is just what I mean.

This book has helped me turn my back on all that and embrace a new freedom and peace with food. It turns out that I can trust myself. I thought I needed to control the beast. Turns out I made all that up. of course I had plenty of help from the world around me.

The term obese meant something else when I was growing up in the 1940's & 50's. They called a woman of 200 pounds "fleshy". To be obese one would have to be a lot larger than average, not just a few pounds like today.
Women then worked hard and had to be strong. Being strong was called for. Even Hollywood stars were healthy looking for the most part.

Now the goal is to be an X-Ray, so that if you pass by a lamp one can make out all your bones. How did we fall in this hole of stupidity??

Thanks for this wonderful book that jerks the covers off!

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating. The author says that about 5% of the population has the ability to have a body like a supermodel. That was mind-blowing. Even if it is actually 10%, the cultural goal to look like that is literally a waste of time. Why can't we all have different body types and truly celebrate that? Dieting just leads to inevitably gaining it all back. I'm now going to learn about intuitive eating for HEALTH not for weight-loss. If that system works as it should I should be able to find the right weight for ME and not for anyone else. The trick is going to be accepting that. ;) Highly recommend this book.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will change the way you think about food, even if you are one of the few who doesn't struggle with weight or body image issues, it will change the way you think about food. It will also change the way you consume media and everything we are told constantly about weight and diet and health. This book is a well researched look at the science of weight and health, but presented in a personal way that is easy to take in. It's not like reading a textbook, more like reading a memoir with research throughout. I saw Harriet Brown speak in Madison and she was thoughtful, kind, funny, and smart. Her book is the same.

Read this book. Read it. Read it for yourself, read it for your mother, read it for your sisters, and girlfriends and guyfriends. Read it.

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book! I highly recommend to anyone who has had trouble dieting. Brown uses many interesting studies to look at the relationship between weight and health and makes some very valid points. From how you metabolize food, the impact of how people treat childhood obesity, how society treats overweight people and the importance of total health.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an eye-opener for me. Well-researched. Harriet Brown does an excellent job of balancing the personal and the societal. Opened up my thinking.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically the revolutionary idea that just because higher weights (those which are currently classified as overweight or obese, guidelines which were raised in the not-so-distant past, which I wasn't aware of) correlate with some markers of unhealthiness such as high cholesterol, diabetes, etc, does not mean that weighing more actually causes those things- and that there's a fair amount of research that those we current classify as overweight have better disease outcomes than those on the lower end of the (literal, figurative, proverbial) scale. She covers a lot of great and compelling research about weight and health that doesn't make it into the mainstream media. I'm now pretty convinced that what we have in America is less of an epidemic and more a bias against fatness, which is rooted in weird moral and emotional issues. The author is coming at it from a pretty personal place, and talks regularly about her own struggles with yo-yo dieting and body image as well as her daughter's suffering & recovery from anorexia, which lends a good personal element to what at times is a lot of recitation of research. My one issue- or just thing that didn't sit quite right- is that she goes out of her way to say that "families don't cause anorexia"; this isn't not true, but I think the way a family deals with and talks about food and body image certainly has an impact, and she even spends a lot of other portions of the book talking about how much society's mores do influence how we view our bodies. So that was just a little disconnected for me. It's an interesting and pretty fast read, and I'd definitely recommend it, and hopefully if enough people do we can bring about a shift in thinking on this topic.

[Jennifer Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to Harriet Brown's writings through her book Brave Girl Eating which was instrumental in helping me help my daughter fight and beat anorexia. That journey led to my examining societal norms related to weight and body image. By divorcing health from weight I am finally active on a daily basis solely because it feels good and I feel better when I make it part of my routine. Looking at me one would never think I could do, as I recently did, a 12-mile round trip hike that took me from 9,000 to 11, 000 feet. This book describes and encapsulates the many truths I have learned in the last few years and I am both happier and healthier for knowing them. I highly recommend this book to anybody open to questioning all they have ever "known" about weight and health.

[Jess Dollar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so glad I read this book. As someone who helps people lose weight and as someone who is admittedly obsessed with healthy eating, I think I really benefitted from the ideas in this book.
I really think everyone that trains people for a living should read this book and consider the wider perspective it offers on weight. I know it's going to inform how I talk to people about health vs weight loss goals.
And if you are in the health and fitness industry and have never been fat, you need this book, too!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very good for what it purports to be. The researcher in me wanted to know more about the research on obesity, weight loss, etc. and the historian in me wanted to know more about how we got to the situation Brown describes, but as an overview of how Americans see "weight as a proxy for health," this was well-researched, well-organized, and well-written. Brown argues that "The notion that we need to consciously restrain our eating (or try to, and feel shame when we fail), that we need to practice constant vigilance around food, that we need to follow someone else's food rules, whether they come from a diet manual, a nutritionist, or the New York Times, has become deeply embedded in our cultural psyche" (p. 90), and the main contribution of the book is enabling us (and giving us permission!) to question the received wisdom about weight and health and eating and body image. Of course, Brown's perspective is itself a kind of orthodoxy--but hopefully a more productive or "healthier" one than the current prevailing orthodoxies.

I found the pull-outs with people's stories to be kind of distracting. It might have made for a more cohesive narrative if Brown had just woven their stories into the larger story she was telling. I also have to point out that while Brown mentions the difficulty in defining "health," she throws the word "fit" around with noting its similar ambiguity. But those things aside, I definitely recommend this book.

[Lisa Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book, and has become my "go to" recommendation when someone wants to learn more about how our culture influences the development of disordered eating, eating disorders, and body image issues in individuals. It's also a nice overview of weight stigma and how that effects people and their ability to care for themselves. I'm familiar with a lot of the research Brown references and she really knows what she's talking about.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting perspective and would be a good choice for argument books for AP Lang or Eng 101/102. It really makes you rethink the connections between weight, BMI, and health. It certainly made me look at the movie I watched tonight in a different way. Pixar's Inside Out was really a wonderful movie, but I found myself noticing that the Joy character was a slim little thing with curves and the Sadness character was a much larger girl, perpetuating negative stereotypes.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

UPDATE ON THIS REVIEW:

It's now been a year since I've read this book, which I originally gave five stars to. I have changed it to 3 stars.

I still think she makes some good points.. a lot of what we've been doing to love our bodies isn't working. And I think many of her tips to change this relationship with ourselves is helpful.

But the more I read on this topic, the more I realize that she's been cherry-picking some of the studies, just as she accuses others of doing. A lot of her research is epidemiological; in fact, most of the studies she references are pulled from the giant NHANES, and then repackaged over and over. There are thousands of clinical studies that show that weight loss improves specific health conditions, even if across the board, it doesn't necessarily result in earlier death. So.. read this book with a grain of salt.


****

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley.

Wow! I am pretty well read on many of the topics presented in this book, but I still learned some things, and I feel like the way that the topics were melded together was pretty fantastic. This book read like a very long newspaper article. 90% of the time, I'd consider that a bad thing, but in "Body of Evidence," it worked well. She covered a massive amount of topics, yet I never felt like she was straying from a central theme. The central theme probably being "We've been lied to!" Basically, obviously whatever we've been doing about our body weight/self esteem/etc. over the years hasn't been working. She lists all the reasons why.

The book flips between her personal stories and her research. Sometimes, this annoys me in books, but Harriet makes it work. Between her own issues with weight and her daughter's issues with anorexia, she has incredible perspective on so many aspects of the issue of weight/body image, and I think this is why it works -- she kind of functions as her own cross-check.

Go in to this book with an open mind and it will have a lot to tell you. Some of it may piss you off. You may also find yourself getting annoyed when you notice your own behavior -- for example, I started becoming very aware of my own propensity to compliment other women while simultaneously belitting myself ("Wow, I wish I looked that good without makeup!") But awareness is the first step to progress.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Examines the many fallacies around weight, dieting, health and exercise. A very good book, and one that made me mad because I've been duped just like everyone else. For people who have a sneaking suspicion that something is rotten in the way we go about looking at weight and health, this is highly recommended.

[Woowott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I must be conservative in my reviews, even when I have thoroughly enjoyed a book and found it a good, useful, delightful read. This was all of those things. Not perfect, by any means, because I still felt as though she was annoyed at thin people, which was not necessarily her intent. And some things I already knew. But the things I DIDN'T know, well-GOOD GRIEF. There are some anger-inducing and insane facts about the medical industry, things to make one incredibly infuriated and want to punch people. The parts where Ms Brown disclosed personal information were heartbreaking. Her writing style was easy to read, clear, and enjoyable. I may change my rating the more time goes by. I do that sometimes. But I am so very glad I bought this little book, and I am excited about checking out her bibliography. This was a wonderful read. And not at all far-fetched, for any nay-sayers.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Harriet Brown. I know there are those who found fault with her memoir chronicling the referring of her anorexic daughter but I was personally impressed with both the amount of research she put in to helping her daughter and what I view as a highly accurate description of the demon that is anorexia. In Body of truth, Brown once again tackles issues of food and weight, shedding light on a number of topics currently in the spotlight. Extensively researched, detailed, and sprinkled with honest personal revelations, I believe this is a valuable book for most anyone who is even the slightest bit influence by the media's bombardment of messages regarding diet, exercise, and body image.

[Megan Burback · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Amazing book. Completely blew my mind and opened up a whole new world for me. Check out my blog to read a more complete review: http://theintrovertedreader.weebly.co...

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating read. I had to read it three times to grasp everything, but it was read three times in a good way.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aside from some stuff that I would call "woo" in the beginning (about gmo's and other such things causing weight gain -- scientifically unproven statements), I really enjoyed this book. It makes the case that being overweight is not a disease. In fact, in and of itself, it isn't even unhealthy. Yes, it could be a symptom of other diseases, but there haven't been any studies that actually show causation (i.e. being fat means you'll get diabetes); the studies that people reference really just show correlation. Interesting and well-argued, this is a book that sheds light on how pervasive fat discrimination is in our society and how it can have ruinous effects on peoples' lives.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well Researched

This author pulls together many studies in order to condemn our current cultures obsession with body image. Maybe the tide is beginning to turn towards an honest look at diversity in body shape and size.