Customer Reviews

Eating in the Light of the Moon

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I feel compelled to share with potential readers of Anita Johnston's EATING IN THE LIGHT OF THE MOON how much this book has helped me on my recovery from bulimia. As a woman with an eating disorder, let me assure that the path to recovery is a long difficult journey, but when things get tough, to this day, I turn to this book.

The concept is different than anything I have read to date, and I have read a lot. I love analysis, thought and literature. Johnston, who, by the way, runs an acclaimed eating disorder clinic in Hawaii uses multicultural fairy tales and myths to illustrate to the reader important steps on the journey to recovery. The story I return to again and again is that of the Tutu bird.

Briefly put, there was a young girl who lived in a village in Africa where the people were starving. Like all the other village children, she was sent out to fetch the animals that had been captured in the village traps overnight so that the villagers might eat. When she got there, there was a Tutu bird in the trap. His song was so sweet that she set him free. She returned to the village and explained what happened. The villagers were so angry that they buried her alive in a mud hut and left her to die. She cried and cried. One day, she heard a sweet song and a ray of light came though the top of her hut. The next day she heard the song again and realized that it was the Tutu bird. The bird was pecking a hole in the mud hut to free her! The bird then dropped in fruits and nuts. This continued until the girl was well fed and the Tutu bird could free her. She returned to an astonished village with the Tutu bird nourished compared to the thin villagers and then left with the Tutu bird to go into the forest forever. The point of the story: Find your voice, listen to it and don't stray. It will serve you in the end no matter how bleak things seem at the time.

If your mind is a literary one - if you are a person who finds deep meaning in stories/books - then PLEASE purchase this book. It has instrumental in my recovery and I really want to thank Ms. Johnston for that. I hope EATING IN THE LIGHT OF THE MOON will speak to you as it has to me.

While Anita Johnson's book focusses on women's use of food as a way to cope with disconnection from our souls, I'm recommending it to everywoman I know! Her chapter "Moontime: Reclaiming the Body's Wisdom" contains a story she wrote for her daughters "to provide them with a new way of understanding the menstrual process". I believe this story has the potential to transform the next generation of emerging women. I want every mother, aunt, health education teacher, and adult woman I know to have have a copy for herself and to pass it on to every women she knows -- but especially our young women and daughters. Johnson's beautiful tale of a young woman's journey toward learning about "women's earth magic" is evocative, full of grace and wisdom, and transformative. My own experience of my female cycles will never be the same.

The life changing power of story graces all the chapters of this book. Women on the road to self-recovery of any sort will do well to spend some time soaking in the goodness Johnson offers on these pages. In her preface Johnson notes that women in recovery from disordered eating "follow a twisting, turning, winding path to their centers. It required them to leave behind old perceptions of themselves that they had adopted from others and to reclaim their own inner authorities. They had to listen to the voice from within to give them guidance and support as they searched from their true thoughts, feelings, and desires." While especially written for those of us working with recovery from eating disorders, this book is an understanding and soulful resource for any woman on the journey to the center of herself. Thank you Anita!

Johnston's book spirals deeply into the core issues that any woman coping with disordered eating would want to address, and she does it with a gentle, patient, and encouraging spirit. Her work uses myth, allegory and storytelling as a way of looking at the deep-seated issues of what it means to be a woman in today's culture and how that affects our relationships with food. This is definitely not a diet or how-to book. It is lyrical, poetic and spiritual, but remains eminently practical. Johnston transcends the standard medical view of disordered eating as a purely physical problem and incorporates woman's mind, body and spirit in her work. Johnston integrates feminine spirituality and feminism with basic healthy living practices and presents options that those of us who have struggled with food may not have considered before. As a recovered bulimic, I can vouch for the efficacy of her approach, and I fervently wish that everyone who has struggled with food and eating issues would read this book.

I'm a dietitian and life coach, and this is a book I have given as a gift to clients. It's target audience is women with eating disorders, but if you expand your definition, that could include anyone who is challenged by food choices.

This book has 20 chapters that are each an easy, digestible length. Author Anita Johnston separates out the ideas of physical hunger and emotional hunger. She points out that as much as we try, no amount of food will satisfy our emotional hungers. And she looks at many of the issues that arise when you stop avoiding the real 'hunger'. She also addresses the inner journey that we each must make to learn who we are and what our truth is.

The book is oriented towards women. It gives a wonderful sense of the feminine, and how women can lose themselves in a masculine, action-oriented world.

There is not a woman in the western world today who hasn't been influenced by 5000 years of masculine thinking. Dr. Johnston's stories and interpretive lessons nourish a hunger for feminine guidance and wisdom, and help the reader tap into a sense of strength born from paying close attention to the information her she receives from her inner resources - dreams, feelings, intuition. Written for women with disordered eating, this book speaks to all women

This is the first time I've ever written an online book review, but this is such a great book that I wanted to encourage others to read it. I encourage any woman who has ever struggled in her relationship with food, or just wants to feel affirmed as a woman, to read it!

I discovered this book a couple of years ago, and it sparked a transformation in my relationship with food by gently helping me understand the deeper reasons for my life-long struggle. The book captured the truth of my experience with disordered eating like nothing ever had, and it gave me tremendous hope that a person can truly recover from it and be free from its grip (which over the past two years has amazingly become my experience & this book is one of the reasons why).

I still return to this book when I start to feel out of balance or simply want to learn from its wise stories again. I wish I could personally thank Anita Johnston for writing this beautiful & profound book (hope she reads these reviews sometimes!)- her use of stories & metaphors is so powerful and really captures the deeper truth of how we can learn to understand and love ourselves as women. Furthermore, the book is very well-written and a delight to read.

If you struggle from disordered eating (or live under the illusion that you can't enjoy eating or have to be on some kind of oppressive "diet" to be healthy & slender), this book can truly change your life. It's not a quick fix, but if you are willing to embark on the sometimes hard journey of going deeper into the causes for your tortuous relationship with food, this book is a wise and loving guide. For me, the journey into and out of the labyrinth has been well worth taking!

Considering the fact that I have an eating disorder, I get very upset with the media and various authors who portray eating disorders as vanity problems or a struggle to "fit in." Anita Johnson described what it is really about- feelings. I would highly recommend this book for not only those with eating disorders, but also their friends and family. I have two copies, one for myself, and one for those who care about me to read.

This was an interesting book, quite true to its name, Johnston uses myths, metaphors and storytelling to help illustrate some of the core "problems" with women's thinking regarding food and eating habits. While I definitely do NOT have problems on the level of examples used in this book - I do not now, nor have I ever been anorexic or bulimic or had any medically treatable eating disorder...I do make "bad" food choices and eat for reasons that are not related to physical hunger...so I got a lot more out of this book that I thought I would based on the target audience alone.

I am very glad to have read it...but realize that for the intended audience, this should probably be a STEP with it also being necessary to consult a doctor to really resolve the issues behind their "disordered eating." I think I've found my own "core" problem and that was largely due to the impact of a couple of the stories/myths used in the book...but the info that Johnston uses in conjunction with the myths/stories is interesting as well and very useful I think, for anyone with poor body image and/or "disordered eating" habits. I'd recommend it in a heartbeat!

For people who want to recover from an eating disorder this book is a must for your library. It is conforting, interesting and soulful. It prompts the inner self to open its mouth and get ready to be fed what will truly nourish you.

An eating disorder can be a catalyst to your growth as a person if you surrender to it with awareness and be open to its teachings. This book can help you do that. When you really know what you need besides behaviors of an eating disorder then you can go about the task of learning and working in partnership with life to create what you are really wanting and desiring.

If you are new in recovery this book helps open the door to the deeper self and prepares you for a journey. If you are already in recovery and want another affirming voice to add to your support system, this book will help.

I am a compulsive eater and when my psychologist suggested I read this book I was skeptical. What would I have in common with with "skinny" people's distorted view of food? I found out that we are much the same and it isn't about the food. I saw myself time after time in this book and what a journey reading it started for me. I recommend this book to all women and I will continue to read it again and again! Why there hasn't been more press on this book escapes me.