Body of Truth

March 15, 2015

Brown (journalism, S.I. Newhouse Sch. of Public Communications, Syracuse Univ.) takes many of the topics she's touched on already in her memoir Brave Girl Eating (2010) and expands those themes into a well-researched and cogent argument for more rational scientific approaches and humane cultural attitudes toward health, eating, and the concept of being overweight. Written in an approachable style and peppered with short first-person interview narratives, Brown's work first emphasizes the lack of consistent, replicable findings of diet and nutrition research studies. She then points out how historically fluctuating definitions of obesity, combined with the growth of the weight-loss industry, have contributed to the cultural and medical community's negative perceptions around the concepts of weight and general health. Finally, Brown's overview of feminist thinking about body image and beauty presents a persuasive reminder that fatness can be seen as a social construction based on race, sexuality, gender, and class. For more academic analyses, see Michael Gard's The End of the Obesity Epidemic and Amy Erdman Farrell's Fat Shame. VERDICT A solid general overview of the scientific and cultural issues surrounding fatness and weight loss with an excellent starter bibliography.--Kellie Benson, Oakton Community Coll. Libs., Des Plaines, IL

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