The Eating Instinct
Food Culture, Body Image, and Guilt in America
by Virginia Sole-Smith
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Nov 13 2018 | Archive Date Nov 13 2018
Henry Holt & Company | Henry Holt and Co.
Talking about this book? Use #TheEatingInstinct #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
An exploration, both personal and deeply reported, of how we learn to eat in today’s toxic food culture.
Food is supposed to sustain and nourish us. Eating well, any doctor will tell you, is the best way to take care of yourself. Feeding well, any human will tell you, is the most important job a mother has. But for too many of us, food now feels dangerous. We parse every bite we eat as good or bad, and judge our own worth accordingly. When her newborn daughter stopped eating after a medical crisis, Virginia Sole-Smith spent two years teaching her how to feel safe around food again — and in the process, realized just how many of us are struggling to do the same thing.
The Eating Instinct visits kitchen tables around America to tell Sole-Smith’s own story, as well as the stories of women recovering from weight loss surgery, of people who eat only nine foods, of families with unlimited grocery budgets and those on food stamps. Every struggle is unique. But Sole-Smith shows how they’re also all products of our modern food culture. And they’re all asking the same questions: How did we learn to eat this way? Why is it so hard to feel good about food? And how can we make it better?
Advance Praise
“I thought food was food was food until I read The Eating Instinct.
Now I understand so much better what's operating on me when I do what
I've done a million times before...eat. Following Virginia Sole Smith on
this ride that's both adventurous and personal will land you at a place
where you feel so much more aware and also liberated every time you sit
down for a meal. Read it before you take another bite!”
—Hanna Rosin, host of NPR’s Invisibilia and author of The End of Men
“With nuance and compassion, Sole-Smith asks how and why food has
become so fraught—entangled with shame and fear and aspiration—for so
many of us. Taking aim at not only weight-obsessed diet culture but also
the "clean" eating dogmas of the alternative-food movement, she
skillfully explores the cultural forces that have eroded our trust in
our own instincts about how to eat. The Eating Instinct will
make you think about your relationship to food and then make you hunger
for a world in which we think less and just eat—simply and
joyfully—more.”
—Maya Dusenbery, author of Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
“Virginia Sole-Smith tackles one of the most complex and emotionally
trying areas of life with depth, humor, and wisdom in her book The Eating Instinct.
With a sensitive and thorough explanation of the issues and context,
she creates a unique window through which to view the challenges that
learning to eat and navigating the ever-present cultural food landmines
create for many individuals. This book is a must-read for anyone who has
ever struggled with eating, dieting, or judgement around food—and that
is likely every person in America.”
—Jenny McGlothlin, SLP, Co-Author of Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating and Conquer Picky Eating for Teens and Adults
“The Eating Instinct is a thoroughly engaging and
thought-provoking book. Reading it will help to liberate you from the
power of our national obsession with thinness and the insidious diet
culture it has spawned.”
—Janet Poppendieck, author of Free For All: Fixing School Food in America
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781250120984 |
| PRICE | $28.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 304 |
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Jodi Picoult; Jennifer Finney Boylan
General Fiction (Adult), Literary Fiction, Women's Fiction
Elizabeth Passarella
Essays & Collections, Humor & Satire, Religion & Spirituality
Publishers Lunch
General Fiction (Adult), Nonfiction (Adult), Teens & YA
