Thank you to NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed reading this book, especially the fat rep, a really nice read.

This book is made up of the personal stories of the author and others she has interviewed about dealing with weight and fat-shaming, mixed in with scientific findings on why some people just can not shift the weight while others can eat whatever, whenever and not gain a pound.

Jenni Murray writes to open eyes on the real struggle some have to lose weight and maintain that loss; with the aim being to end fat-shaming.

I am a larger lass who has tried every diet going, but with a firm belief that I would rather be mentally well adjusted and a good person in general, than obsess about food, and the physicality of a person, like that, 's what matters. I have never desired to be thin, but sometimes a little less fat would be nice.

At these times, when the issues other people have with fatness get to me, I have thrown myself into the latest diet and stuck to it like glue. To find, that I can lose a stone fairly quickly. However, I will then only lose a maximum of half a pound a week for the next several months. Agonising over why my hard work and effort equal such a pitiful result.

To obsess and make a diet your life and find such small results gets really hard, and soon, becomes impossible for me to maintain. I then start to slip – and six months of hard slog is quickly undone in two weeks, usually with a bit more weight added on like someone has been charging me interest the entire time I was losing weight.

Before I slip I am often eating so little that I am miserable, as I desperately try to ‘shock’ my body into losing weight.

My mental health and self-esteem deteriorate as I feel more and more like a failure, and the people who were just two weeks ago telling me how amazing I’m doing are looking at me with a knowing glint to their eye.

I’m not one to give into my blues. Before long, I remind myself of what an amazing, beautiful, loving, funny, compassionate, intelligent, passionate person I am. I will not let the issues other people have with fatness affect my happiness.

It was really interesting to read a scientific insight into why so many people get stuck in the same cycle I so often find myself in.

Jenni Murray writes openly and shares the pain of herself and others in a way which is incredibly moving and also wonderfully hopeful.

BOOK REVIEW: Fat Cow, Fat Chance: The science and psychology of size by Jenni Murray (2020)

I’ve been a daily listener of Woman’s Hour for years & hugely admire the main presenter Jenni Murray: an intelligent, funny, thoughtful woman, in my opinion the best interviewer in the UK. I was dismayed to hear she’s retiring from Woman’s Hour, but it makes sense for her, after presenting it for 30 years plus.

Jenni Murray has previously written other women-focused books: ‘Memoirs of a not so dutiful daughter’, a book about the menopause (‘Is it me, or is it hot in here’?) & ‘A history of Britain in 21 women’.

Her latest memoir ‘Fat cow, fat chance’ came out in July. It’s a painful, honest account of Murray’s lifelong struggle with obesity. I’ve long been interested in the science & history of weight loss, noticing the pervasive fat-shaming which happens without a second thought, and which is acceptable in a way other types of discrimination are not. The research shows that losing a substantial amount of weight, if someone gets to the point of obesity, is much harder than kicking other bad habits or addictions, including alcohol or drugs. Processed food is everywhere, & an abstinence model simply doesn’t work with food, while it can work with alcohol or drugs.

Murray offers an account of growing up in Yorkshire in a family where food is valued & where lots of time is spent food shopping, cooking & eating. She talks about her relations with the women in her family, some overweight, some not, & how fat shaming & weight anxiety are communicated even in the most well meaning families. She discusses her subsequent life, where despite great professional success & a good family life, she yo yo dieted for decades, experiencing failure after failure, leading her to despair.
Murray looks at the science of obesity, in her case eventually leading her to choose bariatric surgery at age 60+ after accepting she had to find a way to save her health. Despite her misgivings & fears, the surgery helped. The book is convincing & interesting (regardless of what one feels about bariatric surgery), even if it doesn’t contain any new information on the science of obesity.

Jenni Murray is a national treasure, an honest raconteur and, I suspect, a really good friend. She is also brutally truthful here in her assessment of her personal journey with obesity. Murray considers the psychology and physiology of this disease from both a scientific view and also a personal perspective. That's what makes the book so good, this isn't just a celebrity diet memoir, it is also an intelligent and considered appraisal of the history of obesity and the different methods the people have tried in order to manage their weight. It is also a political polemic about the fact that obesity is not always considered a disease, that abuse about 'size' is not considered a crime and that the NHS will not commit to metabolic surgery but would rather spend millions treating the symptoms. I found this book terrific, it is warmly and honestly written but has the research to back it up. Jenni Murray was already a favourite from her work on 'Women's Hour' but deserves to praised for her work here.

Fat Cow, Fat Chance is a book addressing the neglected issues of weight and a culture of fat-shamers who, without knowing the circumstances behind someone's weight problems, make a decision to blame said person for the circumstances they find themselves in; I'm here to tell you that isn't always the case. Being fat DOES NOT necessarily mean you sit and binge high fat and sugary foods all day NOR does it mean the person is lazy and has shunned exercise. Many of those who put on weight, as I have, suffer from illnesses that greatly restrict the amount of exercise they can do and some conditions, such as my obstructive sleep apnea, actively make it much more difficult to shed weight. There are also medications that make you pile on the pounds (pregabalin). So next time you see a fat girl (or guy) don't just look and judge. This book is one of the few to address this topic and as someone who feels very strongly about people who judge you based on your looks alone I had to read it.

That said, obesity in the Western world has become an epidemic which must be dealt with and this book gives you a glimpse into the world of someone living every day overweight, their internal struggles with acceptance and the ceaseless quest to be thin. Mixing scientific advice and her personal account we get a rounded view of the subject. I felt for the most part that the research provided was objective and accessible to all written in an eminently readable fashion and you could tell Jenni was emotional about her weight. There were, however, a number of times that I was quite irked by the narrative as the author appeared to have problems accepting herself and others and I felt that was the whole point of the book, in my mind - to remind everyone that it is okay to be fat and happy. The message just got a little garbled along the way. Many thanks to Doubleday for an ARC.

This book is made up of a collection of personal stories and a kind of memoir style narrative from the author combined with scientific facts and figures as well at deep dives into popular diets and weight control methods. I definitely preferred the person stories and more memoir like aspect of the book but the facts and figures backed up some opinions that this writer had as well as some of the diet explorations having personal cross overs.



In terms of coming down on a side as to whether this writer is body positive or trying to help fight the obesity crisis, I would say they are less on the side of body positivity BUT they are definitely not in support of extreme dieting and definitely against aft shaming so this made for an interesting read. I was at points very angry with some of the points made in the book but all of it was definitely food for thought. I come to this book with a lot of experience of the things being explored and written about and so it is natural for me to be defensive of the way I have chosen to live my life.



The diets and weight control methods discussed and explored in this book are definitely all methods and brands that people have heard of and the fact that this writers has lived through most of them means they are definitely coming from a very informed position and I was very prepared to accept their opinion on these weight loss methods given the fact that it was a practical opinion. This writer also discusses other books on being fat and I have read some and am definitely going to be exploring some of the others. There are a few books and movies discussed in this book that have fat characters where the plot points or the endings are given away so be warned that this book does contain spoilers.



Overall I think that this book provides and interesting discussion from a very personal point of view but with a good balance of facts and figures. It definitely generated some emotion in me and in my view the balance of facts and opinions was just about right. I definitely didn't agree with everything that this writer discussed but it spurred me to explore further and also made me think about my own weight loss journey.

Fat Cow, Fat Chance by Dame Jenni Murray is a often sad, sometimes angry exploration of what it has meant to be a fat woman in the UK in the recent past and today. My heart hurt with Jenni as she painfully struggled through an eating disorder, absurd diets and horrible medical issues. I never felt that she truly accepted her own fat body and has only recently come to appreciate it now that surgery has made it less fat and therefore more socially acceptable.

I was hoping to find some embracing and acceptance of every shape of body, but it seems that Jenni still has disgust and fear of obesity. I suppose it’s not surprising, given her experiences, but it’s still disappointing.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Jenni Murray has written a brave and honest account of what it's really like to be overweight, with personal experience expertly interwoven with the history and politics of the issue. This is readable and informative..

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

Fat Cow, Fat Chance is Jenni Murray’s personal account of her journey with weight, from childhood to date. It is interwoven with a history of obesity, various diets plans and scientific and medical opinions. This makes it different to most books in this genre and adds gravitas to the book as a whole.
Jenni is a wonderful writer and the sections about her personal journey are heartfelt and full of emotion. Many of her stories made me laugh out loud. The opinions on diets were very interesting with Jenni having tried many of them over the years.
The scientific and medical views were incredibly informative and well presented, easy to understand and well balanced.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Fat Cow, Fat Chance by Jenni Murray is a mix of personal experience and scientific research about being overweight and the pursuit of weight loss.