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A review by outsmartyourshelf
The Ministry of Thin: How the Pursuit of Perfection Got Out of Control by Emma Woolf
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
2.75
TWs: diet culture, eating disorders. Please do not read further if these trigger you.
"Now I'm not a saint but I'm not a sinner. Now everything's cool as long as I'm getting thinner." ('The Fear', Lily Allen)
I bought this book about 8 years ago for an essay in my postgrad course but never got around to reading it in full until now. The author looks at their own history of eating disorders & asks why when women make gains in other areas of their lives, their weight is still such a hot topic. I remember reading in another book years ago that the more successful women become, the more extreme the objectification & the images used to denigrate us become. This book was published in 2012 which means that some of it, especially the popular culture aspect, is definitely dated now, but the view of women in our society is still relevant & still as much of a problem as ever.
If you've ever read any other books on the subject, then there's nothing particularly new here. The tone aimed for seems to have been as witty asides, but it can come across as rather condescending in parts. There's also a sliver of ableism at times where the author assumes that everyone is the same, losing weight is simply a case of eating less & moving more. If it was that simple, there'd be no need for all these diet plans & hardly anyone would be overweight. Some of us do have health conditions & take medications that impact weight loss/gain so it's not that we're scarfing down entire chocolate fudge cakes in one sitting.
There are one or two other issues: unfortunately the author makes the error of repeating the lie that muscle weighs more than fat - a pound in weight is a pound in weight - muscle however is leaner. They also don't mention the reclassification in the late 90s of the healthy/overweight/obese BMI categories when millions of people went from healthy to overweight & overweight to obese overnight without gaining an ounce. Overall it's okay but rather too dated in many ways now.
"Now I'm not a saint but I'm not a sinner. Now everything's cool as long as I'm getting thinner." ('The Fear', Lily Allen)
I bought this book about 8 years ago for an essay in my postgrad course but never got around to reading it in full until now. The author looks at their own history of eating disorders & asks why when women make gains in other areas of their lives, their weight is still such a hot topic. I remember reading in another book years ago that the more successful women become, the more extreme the objectification & the images used to denigrate us become. This book was published in 2012 which means that some of it, especially the popular culture aspect, is definitely dated now, but the view of women in our society is still relevant & still as much of a problem as ever.
If you've ever read any other books on the subject, then there's nothing particularly new here. The tone aimed for seems to have been as witty asides, but it can come across as rather condescending in parts. There's also a sliver of ableism at times where the author assumes that everyone is the same, losing weight is simply a case of eating less & moving more. If it was that simple, there'd be no need for all these diet plans & hardly anyone would be overweight. Some of us do have health conditions & take medications that impact weight loss/gain so it's not that we're scarfing down entire chocolate fudge cakes in one sitting.
There are one or two other issues: unfortunately the author makes the error of repeating the lie that muscle weighs more than fat - a pound in weight is a pound in weight - muscle however is leaner. They also don't mention the reclassification in the late 90s of the healthy/overweight/obese BMI categories when millions of people went from healthy to overweight & overweight to obese overnight without gaining an ounce. Overall it's okay but rather too dated in many ways now.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Eating disorder