This book should have a warning label on it!
Written: Jan 23 '02 (Updated Jan 23 '02)
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Pros: Probably a great book for those who overindulge in the occasional sweets.
Cons: Dangerous for a true food addict.
The Bottom Line: Mismarketed to the addiction market. Frightening to think of who may have allowed this book to fuel their denial of true addiction.
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| armywife's Full Review: Breaking Free From Compulsive Eating Books |
Geneen Roth has made a name for herself in the area of Eating Disorders. Through her books, workshops and tapes she has been a key contributor to this field. Her previous books “When Food is Love” and “Feeding the Hungry Heart” are national bestsellers.
She speaks from experience. To get the full story of her struggle with food you should start with her original book “When Food is Love”. In it she details her childhood and how abuse led her to a life of looking to food for…what else(?)…love! She describes in great detail her relationship with a live in lover and how she felt second best to the memory of his deceased wife. It reads much like a personal testimony you might hear at a 12-step group of someone’s life with an eating disorder.
Her previous books described a personal struggle with food but did not throw out any answers of how to change. “Breaking free from Compulsive Eating” is Roth’s more practical handbook to what she believes is the answer to those who suffer with food addiction.
A compulsive eater is someone who literally is as addicted to food as an alcoholic is to alcohol. Roth believes that dieting is not the answer for those people who are truly compulsive overeaters. This is where the similarity between Roth and a 12-step program ends. Overeaters Anonymous would tell a compulsive overeater not to diet but to abstain from any food substances, which trigger a binge. Roth on the other hand says, “Go for it!” Take the locks off the fridge and unlatch the cabinets. Bring on the brownies, pile on the pancakes and start icing the cupcakes because freedom has arrived. Her no holds barred, nothing-is-forbidden approach to food addiction is definitely in a class by itself.
Many times I flipped back to the cover just to make sure I was reading a book on food addiction. Did it say just “breaking free” or maybe “breaking free from food”? Did it really use the specific term “compulsive eating”?
There are many ways to describe a problem with food. There are also many different kinds and varying levels of mental issues surrounding food. Someone may struggle with 10 lbs. here and there or someone may literally suffer from an obsessive-compulsive disorder with food that causes them to eat to the point of fatality. Just as I may on occasion run back home just to make sure the iron is off, another person may feel the need to do this 7 times in a row….every day. A paranoid u-turn back to the house to check the stove does not make someone OCD. Luckily we have organizations such as the American Psychological Association to define these varying areas for us.
The DSM-IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual - fourth edition) is the book psychologists and psychiatrists refer to for diagnostic guidelines and diagnosis. We’ve all heard of anorexia and bulimia but now there is officially a third eating disorder listed in the DSM-IV. “Binge eating disorder” is what defines a compulsive overeater and this definition has only been recently recognized although we all know it’s been around forever!
The funny thing about language is that one word can completely alter the meaning of a sentence. My friend is an overeater. She struggles with controlling the occasional 3rd helping of cheesecake. We all have a friend like this. She puts on 5 lbs at Christmas and then takes it off. She buys Shape a few months before bikini season to get off those nasty 5 lbs that came back when she forgot to put down the candy last week. Let’s face it though….”compulsive” she is not.
John Candy and Chris Farley would be excellent examples of famous compulsive overeaters. If I’m not badly mistaken both dealt with addiction in various forms and unfortunately did not live to tell about it. In order to be truly defined as a compulsive overeater suffering from Binge Eating disorder you must by definition have recurrent episodes of binge eating characterized by both of the following:
1. Eating, in a discrete period of time, an amount of food that is definitely larger than most people would eat in a similar period of time in similar circumstances; and
2. A sense of lack of control over eating during the episodes (e.g., a feeling that one can’t stop eating or control what or how much one is eating)
[from the DSM-IV manual]
In particular with binge eating disorder people are addicted to actual substances in certain foods such as white flour or sugar. A true compulsive overeater will react abnormally when one of their trigger foods is introduced into their system. Someone who has been abstaining from all white flour for 10 years can be thrust back into the throes of their food addiction when they accidentally eat one small bite of something containing white flour (if of course that is the substance they are sensitive to). Geneen Roth could have named her book anything under the sun. She chose to use the term “compulsive eating” and this is why her book must be viewed in relationship to Binge Eating Disorder.
This book outlines the Roth philosophy on controlling a food addiction. It is broken down into 17 chapters, which cover an overview of her personal battle with what she terms food addiction (though not as detailed as in her previous 2 books). She spends several chapters discussing the different arenas in which eating takes place (socially, family events, parties) and also covers a chapter on exercise and scales and how we need to be more forgiving of ourselves in this area.
In general this book reads much like her previous two—relaxed, forgiving and very much the “feel good” approach. She takes several chapters to discuss binge eating and compulsiveness in relation to food. Having dealt with it personally according to her story she seems to grasp the experience well. Astoundingly so her answer is what will amaze you. In the end the premise of this book and her answer to “breaking free from compulsive eating” is to abstain from nothing, eat everything and stop trying to control your food intake.
She tells the reader to stop obsessing over food and start chowing down! No food substance is restricted. There is no attempt to set guidelines in any way. To Roth the answer is simple. If we allow ourselves to eat whatever we want whenever we want then the obsession will disappear. It is all in our minds. We have been telling ourselves for so long that we can’t have it and all we need is a little reverse psychology. Tell your brain that a new day has dawned and stop restricting yourself. As soon as you do you’ll find that you no longer feel deprived and therefore no longer need to binge. I wonder if I should try this philosophy out with my Mastercard? Maybe if I just pretend that there is no spending limit to my credit cards then Macy’s will too. Let’s all jump on this bandwagon. One big giant hallucination that can be fun for the whole family!
Oh happy day! Freedom at last! Don’t you love it? The idea that we can eat as much as we want and after doing so we’ll finally feel full. We’ll discover we’ve eaten all we need to eat and food is no longer an issue. Isn’t it grand? Indeed it is, as most fantastic dreams tend to be. Roth’s answer to compulsive eating is in a word—dangerous.
Would you offer an alcoholic a beer? A smoker a drag? A pothead some weed? Would you tell someone who had been sober for 10 years that if they would simply crack open a 12 pack and have one good drunken spree they’d be cured? Then not only would they no longer need their weekly AA meetings but also they could once again enjoy an occasional cocktail at the Christmas party without it leading down the road to destruction. Why not? After all didn’t Satan offer Adam and Eve a nice crispy apple in the garden of Eden? I bet that apple tasted absolutely delicious too until they got thrown out of paradise on their respective rearends and returned to dust. Oh but who needs paradise, right?
Geneen Roth tells us that compulsive overeating is all in our head and then the chapters that follow discuss how to use reverse psychology to cure that fact. Unfortunately too many readers may gloss over the initial statement that food addiction is a matter of “mind over matter”. Is it all in your head? Well let’s take a simple quiz to find out.
Question: Is your overeating all in your head?
Answer: Yes
Diagnosis: Congratulations you are not a food addict. You have what 99% of all individuals have…occasional overindulgences in activities they enjoy!
Question: Is your overeating all in your head?
Answer: No, I am biochemically addicted to certain substances in food
Diagnosis: You are a food addict.
Geneen Roth made one tragic mistake when she marketed this book to those who suffer from true binge eating disorder as defined by the DSM-IV and I would not like to imagine how many people who had been “sober” from their sensitive food substance had a total relapse when they tested her theory.
The bottom line is that if you are simply someone who struggles with overindulgence or the occasional weakness to cookies then you may find this book to be a welcome addition to your library. Stack it next to your Shape subscription and you’ll be ready for an enjoyable weekend of reading.
If, however, you are truly a food addict you will need to view this book like a hot stove next to a baby….Don’t touch! Hands off! Run! Run! Run!
It will be a happy day when the American Psychological Association and other mental health organizations begin dealing with food addiction the same way they do other substance related addictions. We all know drug addicts must go through withdrawal to kick the habit. Alcoholics must travel the same path. Even those who want to quit smoking are encouraged to wear a nicotine patch to avoid the horrible effects that nicotine leaving your system wreaks on your body.
When I was in college we would go through periods of drinking every weekend. However if I suddenly stopped all the parties to pay more attention to my schoolwork it did not cause my body to detox. Not so with chocolate! Trust me when I say that kicking chocolate was no easy thing to do. When I say it hurt I mean it physically hurt. I was in the bed and I was suffering. We don’t deny that caffeine drinkers have the same characteristics when they try to cut back. So why as a society do we find it so hard to believe that a person who is 200 lbs overweight might be dealing with something a little more than simply “mind over matter”.
Simply put Geneen Roth’s books are mismarketed to the detriment of those struggling with authentic addiction. Although she claims to be a food addict it is clear that no psychiatrist could diagnose her as one and keep his reputation in tact.
If you want real answers on how to beat food addiction check out the following sources.
1. Food Addiction, the body knows by Kay Sheppard
2. From the First Bite: A Complete Guide to Recovery from Food Addiction by Kay Sheppard
3. Recovery Cookbook by Kay Sheppard
4. Anatomy of a Food Addiction: The Brain Chemistry of Overeating: An Effective Program to Overcome Compulsive Eating by Anne Katherine
5. Food for Recovery: The Complete Nutritional Companion for Overcoming Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, and Eating Disorders by Joseph Beasley
6. Compulsive Overeater
The Basic Text for Compulsive Overeaters by Bill B.
7. Abstinence In Action
Food Planning For Compulsive Eaters by Anne Marie Erb
8. Recovery From Compulsive Eating
A Complete Guide to the Twelve-Step Program
Author: Jim A.
9. Food For Thought
Daily Meditations For Overeaters by Elizabeth L.
More resources for those struggling with biochemical food addiction and TRUE binge eating disorder:
1. www.overeatersanonymous.org
2. www.hazeldon.com
3. www.onlinerecovery.org
4. www.foodaddicts.org
5. www.foodaddiction.com
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armywife
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Location: White Sands Missile Range, NM
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Army wife, Stay at home Mom and Graduate student in Professional Counseling.
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