Susie Orbach on Eating

With the publication of Fat is a Feminist Issue in the 1970s, psychotherapist Susie Orbach identified the unhappy, unhealthy relationship that many women have with food and their body image and suggested a sane and sensible new approach to end the harmful cycle of self-loathing, denial, dieting and bingeing that ensnares an alarming proportion of us to lesser or greater degrees. She was right, of course, but all these years on her wisdom is more needed than ever, as obesity becomes a national problem while simultaneously anorexia and bulimia affect more and more girls - and, increasingly, boys - at younger and younger ages. So this little book should find a place on the bedside table (or kitchen shelf) of every woman who has ever broken a crash diet with a chocolate orgy. Short on words but big on message, it aims to 'transform your eating from eating that hurts or is chaotic into eating that calms and nourishes you'. Orbach has identified the five keys that 'will help you eat in a new way and enable you to be the size that is right for you'. They are: Eat When You are Hungry: Eat the Food Your Body is Hungry for; Find Out Why You Eat When You Aren't Hungry; Taste Every Mouthful; Stop Eating the Moment You are Full. It's as easy and as difficult as that. She acknowledges that it will take time to change the habits of a lifetime, and recommends that you take the book at your own pace, reading a few pages at a time and as often as you find helpful. You may absorb the ideas instantly, or take time to get the hang of others - and it might be that just one of the sensible observations is your own personal key to achieving the goal of 'calm eating'. This is a book to work with; and while it is fervently anti-diet, it is very pro-food. 'Eating is pleasurable. Eating is delicious. Eating is sensual,' says Orbach. Once you can agree with her wholeheartedly, without even thinking of adding, 'Yes, and I'll live on herb tea tomorrow to make up for it', you will have succeeded. (Kirkus UK)