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.
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“A well-researched and cogent argument…A solid general overview of the scientific and cultural issues surrounding fatness and weight loss with an excellent starter bibliography.”
— Library Journal
“This book may be just what most of us need, so we can be kinder to ourselves and others and truly take care of the bodies we have. It’s a revelation.”
— San Francisco Book Review“Brown tackles the myths and realities of the ‘obesity epidemic,’ exposing the biggest lies driving the rhetoric of obesity.”
— Philadelphia TribuneBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Harriet Brown is the author of Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia, which has been translated into several languages and won a Books for a Better Life Award in 2011. She has edited two anthologies and has written for the New York Times’ magazine and Tuesday science section, O magazine, Psychology Today, Prevention, and many other publications. Brown is an associate professor of magazine journalism at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
Karen Saltus has narrated television and radio commercials, audiobooks, textbooks, multimedia, film, and voice prompts for interactive telephone applications. She began her career thirty years ago at a radio station in Portland, Maine. She later became a creative director for a station in Massachussetts. In 1994 she became a full-time freelance voice-over talent.