Customer Reviews

Making Weight: Healing Men's Conflicts with Food, Weight, and Shape

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book offers the lay person a comprehensive guide to weight and body image issues in men and promises to be a valuable resource for men and their families. The authors make compelling arguments for how and why these problems have increased for males over the last decade. The book is directed primarily toward men "who can't stand the way they look in the mirror, and the ones who are so driven for perfection that they neglect the deeper areas of life"(p.xiv). However, it is also intended for family and friends of such men and professionals who may treat them in clinical practice. The tone and style of the book would appeal a bit more to a lay audience than a professional one, and I think would make a good "recommended reading" for a therapist to offer to a client.

Overall, this book makes a very important contribution ... and one that you can recommend to your patients for an informative and insightful examination of men's concerns with weight and shape.

You'd never suspect from looking at the cover articles of men's fitness magazines at your local newsstands, but until now men had cause to feel neglected by the body dissatisfaction mavens of the academic community. In contrast to the scores of books written about women's issues about their bodies, eating disorders, and related topics, the literature addressed to males has been thin indeed. Men with eating disorders can now feel cared about too.

Dr. Tom Holbrook's account of his own struggle with anorexia nervosa is a highlight of the book. This remarkably candid, self-revelatory story of an astute psychiatrist whose struggles permeated his medical and psychiatric training and subsequent practice is probably matchless in the annals of wounded healers.

The last sections concern recovery, dealing with topics from basic nutritional information designed to foster realistic dietary and meal planning for gaining (or losing) weight, to psychological, social and spiritual aspects of recovery.

Surprise surprise! Men have bodies, too; and what they see in their own glass or mental mirrors has as deep a sociological and psychological influence as for women. Inevitably, then, habitual use of food and exercise to control the personal impulses and cultural responses could never remain a "woman's problem." What will be regretable will be how many male deaths and destroyed lives it will take before that simple point does not have to be the main theme opening a book such as this...and then pretty much the only theme of substance that the authors seem interested in fleshing out throughout the rest of their superficial treatment of the subject. Before this book, material on male eating disorders was quite rare and frequently misguided; after this book, good material on male eating disorders remains just as rare as before. With the deep experience brought to the matter by all three respectable authors, that suggests a depressing prognosis for finding any understanding out there among less knowledgeable therapists and others in a position to support recovery. Sure, the book throws a wide net in the search for causes and recognizes the core of the issue in its suggestions for recovery; but in an attempt to reach a general public audience, they have gone so light-headed that they come off like quack doctors probing any place it might maybe hurt, then handing out snake oil for the remedy. Even with gender identity running so horribly ferociously through the problem for both sexes, men who suffer and the family and support systems helping them would do better at this point to look to any of the excellent books already published for women.

I found this book very helpful. As a man who is working through exercise addiction, anorexia and recognizing my own self worth, this book was an excellent supplement to the counseling and nutritional programs in which I was already involved. Although I found the first half of the book to be similar to others (history of eating and eating disorders, cultural influences, societal context) and interesting, I got the most out of chapters 5 through 9. Those chapters are inspirational because of the "psychoeducational" aspect. Reading about studies that discuss our body's wisdom, capabilities AND limits along with the physical and mental effects of starvation and overuse were quite succint and poignant. While reading these chapters I made connections with my own experience and found it "easier" to get better.

What an excellent, normalizing, humanizing book on men's struggle with weight, shape and appearance. Dr. Holbrook's account of anorexia is a truly courages precedent of self-disclosure. The entire author trio offers a panoramic overview of various facets of male eating. The authors offer a psychologically healthy paradigm that shifts men's focus from weight management to shape management (after all, as the authors wisely note, "shape is easieer to change than weight). The books is replete with empirically sound discussion of the pitfalls of dieting and highly practical healthy eating and wellness tips. The book is accessible yet encyclopedic in scope: for example, it offers a discussion of the so-called sensory specific satiety and its interplay with appetite and overeating.

The book is by no means a rehashing of wellness truisms - the authors have managed to offer gender-specific, male-centered discussion of a whole gamut of food/eating-related topics ranging in scope from sexuality to fitness to such appearance topics as hair and love handles; and have offered a more than superficial analysis of self-help, psychological and psychopharmacological treatment options.

Of particular importance is the section for significant others of men with eating problems. The book offers ways to reach out to men struggling with weight management, in face-saving, ego-non-threatening ways. As such, the book is written with a good degree of psychological savvy and is clearly informed by the authors' extensive professional as well as personal experience with eating disorders in males.

"Making Weight" certainly makes the grade as a no-nonsense resource for men struggling with weight, shape and appearance.

Pavel Somov, Ph.D.
Author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger, 2008)

I recently went for a physical and got lectured by the doctor on being overweight. I am now motivated and trying hard to lose weight. I got this book from the library because I thought it might be helpful and it could be a thoughtful discussion of men and weight issues including weight loss. I was led to believe this by the title, subtitle, and especially by these words on page xiv of the introduction:

"This book is for men who cannot stand the way they look in the mirror, . . . It is for men who are overeaters . . ."

However that's almost the last you hear about overeating or weight loss for the entire rest of the book. The book is devoted to those who are anorexic. I strongly disagree with the review here that claims "This book may be appreciated by those who do NOT have eating disorders and eat poorly, don't exercise, and/or are overweight." It is the opposite of help to anyone is overweight. In fact, it tries to convince the reader that losing weight and keeping it off is impossible, hopeless, and you shouldn't even try, even though this is contrary to many medical studies, scholarship, and much living proof out there. The authors seem to believe that your weight is predetermined genetically and cannot be changed. There is one possibly useful anecdote about an overweight man one of the authors met on a plane, and that's it.

Instead, the book appears to be aimed at anorexic men, trying to convince the reader that they must accept their weight and not try to lose any pounds because it's impossible and unhealthy to do so. Whether this is helpful to anorexic men I wouldn't know, because I am not anorexic.

If you are overweight and need to lose weight for your health, do not read this book.

This book may be appreciated by those who do NOT have eating disorders and eat poorly, don't exercise, and/or are overweight. This book draws strongly on the fields of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, so the reader should be okay with that or not read it. The authors say that looking in a mirror objectively is a good way to tell if you are overweight, that there ARE "good" and "bad" foods, and even disclose how many calories are burned per hour of certain types of exercise. All of these things are not conducive to recovery from an eating disorder. In the last chapter, they come across as basically blaming the family, whether they intended it to be that way or not.

If you have an eating disorder, do not read this book.

While I don't aggree with everything in the book. The book provides a good overview of males with eating disorders as well as Dr. Holbrook's personal story. I think some of the low ratings are because certain chapters are hard to understand but it is overall a good book.

This book is a big disappointment. Offers no valuable insights for men with eating disorders. Andersen is called the leading authority on this subject but I cannot fathom why this is so. Most likely, he and the other editors/authors just wanted to be the first to publish a book like this. Unfortunately, they were not up to the task. Hopefully, someone who understands this topic more will eventually publish a more useful book on the subject.