Anti-Diet

October 7, 2019
Nutritionist Harrison, host of the podcast Food Psych, debuts with this impassioned and articulate plea for readers to reject “diet culture” and reclaim their lives. In Part One, Harrison, who specializes in treating eating disorders and once suffered from one herself, reveals how “diet culture” steals one’s time, money, and well-being. In Part Two, she promotes the concept of eating “intuitively” (basically, whatever one desires when hungry) and of “health at every size” (slim people, she notes, are not necessarily healthier). Harrison cites research supporting her claim that diets don’t work, confirming that the vast majority of those following restrictive regimens gain back the weight they’ve lost—and then some—within five years. In addition, she argues that chronic diseases, such as various cardiovascular ones, often blamed on “the obesity epidemic” (another fabrication, she charges) are actually linked to weight cycling and yo-yo dieting. Harrison delves into how diet culture developed, pinning much of the blame on big pharma and the diet-food industry. A “fatphobic” and “food phobic” culture, she concludes, has done more harm than good, stigmatizing larger-bodied individuals in the eyes of others and themselves. Harrison’s enlightening, heretical tract provides a new perspective on the dieting narrative which many take as gospel truth.