Body of Truth

How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight - and What We Can Do About It

By: Harriet Brown

Narrated by: Karen Saltus

Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Over the past 25 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 in to 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.

©2015 Harriet Brown (P)2015 Gildan Media LLC

Food for thought

Food for thought, literally. Gives you a lot to chew over. Overall, I enjoyed this book and have a lot to consider and reflect on. Worthwhile to make you examine your own relationship with food, weight, and your body. My only gripe with the narrator was that she did some funny accents to try to convey different voices.

Really interesting

This book contains very important information for anyone who has ever dealt with weight issues.

Love It!

Been recommending this book to all my family and friends. This work was a breath of fresh air getting down to the details really worth looking at.

Good information, not so great reader

as I'm working on a major lifestyle change, I am very appreciative of books such as this one that helped me work through all the mental and emotional baggage that I'm carrying around. It's not just weight that I carry, it's all the bad messaging that has led me to this point. So that being said, I do appreciate what this author had to share and found some of it very enlightening. Some information was was a bit repetitive as I've heard it before from other authors. But I really can't fault the writer for that, there's only so much information out there because no one wants to talk about this topic. I was disappointed with the reader. her overall tone and sadly the voice / accent mimicry were really off. It was frankly off-putting but not so much that I couldn't continue to listen to the book. If you're looking for information, this is a good source. If you're looking for a very well read book, this is not it.

Timely and critical message

Appreciate this introduction and overview of why we feel like we do in our bodies

Waste of time

Though I appreciate her attempt at spreading the message of healthy body image, this is an unbalanced, poorly researched book. It's obvious pretty quickly who she respects and who's theories and advice she has a problem with. She cherry-picks theories and statistics to support her view, and equates correlation with causation EVEN THOUGH she keeps reminding listeners NOT to do those very things. I'm sure there's better out there.... Don't waste your time here.

I don’t enjoy the narrator

This book seems like one that I would really enjoy but unfortunately I had to stop listening because I don’t enjoy the narrator. It feels more like I’m listening to an advertisement in a book. Don’t let this dissuade you from trying it out-you may enjoy her. She’s just not for me.