Most Helpful Customer Reviews
72 of 78 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Awful, Awful, Awful Writing, June 15, 2009
This review is from: Diary of an Exercise Addict (Hardcover)
This is one of the only times that I have seriously questioned whether the other reviews were written by family members, friends or publishing house staffers. I think you would have to be related to this author or paid to write a remotely positive review of this book.
I learned the hard way: do not waste your time or money if you want an in-depth look at someone with exercise bulimia - the author reveals nothing about her daily exercise regimen, her feelings when working out or when she was prevented from doing so. Rather, she spends the bulk of the book trying to impress the reader with her pampered lifestyle ("My flesh has become my battleground: a medium for all my upper-class struggles to manifest through the common rich girl practice of calorie counting") - how "Mommy" and "Daddy" supported her as a 23-year-old college graduate who was too good to work at temp jobs so she would lie around her rent-free cottage eating organic food and picking up men for one-night stands in which she conveniently forgets to use protection. ("Why don't men know how easy I am?"). Trust me, it only gets worse when she discusses her work as a poet. ("I'm dressed like a hooker to hide the fact that I'm a violent poet", "My work is so unconventional, I doubt the Virginia poets really want to claim me as their own"). I was rather horrified to see the review from the father who claims that his daughter has the same body issues - the author has no trouble sunbathing topless in front of her father and she publishes her diary entries in which she writes about her dreams of attacking her father.
I could not find an ounce of empathy for someone who was this self-absorbed. ("All these men are looking at me. They are, they are all looking at me and I know it's because I've gained enough weight that my face looks normal and my body looks skinny, which means I look like a supermodel and that's why they're looking.") Her only claim-to-ED fame was that she apparently lost 40+ pounds in a matter of a few months and then, after a massive binge that merits little discussion, she starts eating again. She does not receive any professional help, except for a dietician that she eventually calls her "life coach." She does not hesitate to tell anyone and everyone that she had an eating disorder and that it can take up to 10 years to recover (Seriously, she is having coffee with someone she barely knows and does not want to befriend: "I tell her anyway that I'm in recovery from an exercise compulsion. I tell her because I'm honest, despite not wanting to be her friend or wanting to sit here at all... I'm explaining that I'm learning how to exercise less, to moderate my workouts, to slowly wean off of exercising." When she does not get the response that she wants, she feels "violated, angry, confused.").
This book does not shed any light on exercise bulimia. Anyone who has a history of any type of ED will not find the exercise that is revealed here to be remotely excessive (running 6 miles a day, 50 minutes on a treadmill or a leisurely bike ride), her calorie restrictions to be too restrictive (at one point, she is limiting herself to 1100 calories per day) or her overall eating behavior too disordered (she binges but only talks about trying to purge once or twice; a description of a binge: "I'm depressed so I'm eating from my fridge, standing in the kitchen... shoveling organic chocolate chips in my mouth in spoonfuls with organic peanut butter, washing it down with organic soy milk, light, and going to bed without brushing my teeth, without masturbating.").
I sincerely hope that there are other books that are more enlightening and more engaging.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Peach needs to get over herself., March 28, 2010
What an egomaniac this chick is.
Eating disorders are about self-hatred and punishment, not going on and on about how "beautiful", "stunning", and "hot" you look. Based on her photo on the book's back flap, those terms are a stretch, as I find her looks average at best, no matter how "long, straight, and blonde" her hair is. This girl needs to get a grip.
I'm giving this book two stars on the chance that some other eating disordered person out there will gain something to help them. For my money, it was an agonizing read where I just wanted to finish the book because I was constantly amazed at the ego on this girl. She had every advantage available to her, and so to me her so-called disorder was merely another facet of her self-indulgent lifestyle.
Another problem with this "diary" is that it perpetuates the myth that eating disorders are the terrain of the affluent. She's all that: white, upper middle class, young, educated. The truth is that eating disorders effect women AND men of all economic strata, all races, all backgrounds, and all ages. It's just that the only ones who could afford to get help were affluent, so that's the only group that got counted in the statistics. Peach is proof of that--she tells us how she goes out and hires a dietician and a therapist, and her parents hire shrinks, etc. a team of professionals to help this girl!
If you can relate to this girl, I dunno. But after struggling with food issues my entire life and sitting through thousands of recovery meetings for the truly food-addicted, I have never seen or heard anyone like Peach.
If nothing else, she needs to go to adult children of alcoholics to get over herself and starting addressing the root of her problems, not just the symptoms.
If you really want to read/learn about exercise bulimia, I highly recommend the Exercise Balance by Powers and Thompson. Both authors specialize in treating eating disorders and working with athletes.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Learned little about the disease, lots about this author's personal neurosis, January 30, 2010
At the risk of sounding cold, I have to say this author really took an opportunity for indulgently over-sharing her own neurosis without teaching much to the lay-person about the disease of exercise bulimia.
I read it quickly since the writing was smooth and personal enough to keep the page turning. By the end of it, I couldn't help but think...what an amazingly indulgent problem to have. To be financially taken care of and exorcise your personal existential angst in a wholly self-involved way. By the end of the book, she'd hired two dietitians, two therapists, one physician. All of this while walking out on her jobs--just walking out! I mean, who has the resources to do all this? I found the author to pampered, self-consumed and lacking perspective on the range of problems that other people throughout the world live with as their reality. She found a way to profit off her experience, but I don't think she did enough to delve into the depth of what this disease looks like from a macro-level.
I'm afraid this voice and style of writing does more to hurt than it does to help since the health insurance industry already sees eating disorders as purely mental illnesses undeserving of coverage for treatment.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
