True Bravery in Food Writing

Most every body who loves and writes food has got some kind of problem or neurosis about it. Some admit it, some don't. The habits can be charmingly peculiar, merely a bit eccentric and willful, sometimes extremely peculiar, often fodder for continually embellished stories--but always fueled by an intense interest in food. Often, of course, this leads to a condition easy to slap a label on, like body dysmorphism and its attendant complexes like bulimia and anorexia.

Samuel T. Stanley writes in painful, thrilling detail about something that in comparison can seem straightforward: obesity, and undergoing bariatric surgery to change it. The resulting change in body-image and his map of himself throws him off-balance, and takes longer to adjust to than the considerable time required to accommodate to the change in his diet and eating habits. With every post in his series, Stanley becomes franker and more specific, and thus more universal. And he makes us see overweight people as they see, and sometimes can't see, themselves.

For the Obese, Alone Even in Public
By Samuel T. Stanley

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2009/04/true-bravery-in-food-writing/16471/