More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for "Enough" [9780063278370]

Overview

ONE OF TIME 100'S MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024 • A DEBUTIFUL BEST BOOK OF 2024 • FEATURED IN NYLON • W MAGAZINE • GLAMOUR • BOOK RIOT • HEYALMA • BUSTLE • ELECTRIC LITERATURE • ROMPER • AND MORE!

"Tender, funny, angry, and sharp as hell. This is an essential book for anyone with a body, anyone with a heart." —Helen Rosner, James Beard Award-winning food journalist and New Yorker staff writer

An unflinching and deeply reported look at the realities of binge-eating disorder from a rising culture commentator and writer for Vogue.

Millions of us use restrictive diets, intermittent fasting, IV therapies, and Ozempic abuse to shrink until we are sample-size acceptable. But for the 30 million Americans who live with eating disorders, it isn’t just about less. More, Please is a chronicle of a lifelong fixation with food—its power to soothe, to comfort, to offer a fleeting escape from the outside world—as well as an examination of the ways in which compulsory thinness, diet culture, and the seductive promise of “wellness” have resulted in warping countless Americans’ relationship with healthy eating.

Melding memoir, reportage, and in-depth interviews with some of the most prominent and knowledgeable commentators currently writing about food, fatness, and disordered eating—Virginia Sole-Smith, Virgie Tovar, Aiyana Ishmael, Leslie Jamison, and others—Emma Specter explores binge-eating disorder as both a personal problem and a societal one. In More, Please, she provides a context, a history, and a language for what it means to always want more than you’ll allow yourself to have.

This unflinching memoir and cultural critique explores:

• Binge-Eating Disorder: A raw and deeply personal account of a lifelong fixation with food, moving beyond a simple diagnosis to explore the shame, secrecy, and fleeting comfort of B.E.D.
• Unpacking Diet Culture: An investigation into the dangerous connections between compulsory thinness, the seductive promise of "wellness," and the societal forces that warp our relationships with eating.
• Mental Health and Identity: A vulnerable exploration of the intersections between clinical depression, coming out as queer, and the search for self-acceptance in a world that demands conformity.
• Reportage and Research: In-depth interviews and sharp analysis featuring leading voices on food and fatness, including Virginia Sole-Smith, Virgie Tovar, Leslie Jamison, and more.