Rating: 3/5
Better known as BodiPosiPanda, Megan Jayne Crabbe is here to take down the diet industry.
#BodyGoals
Body Positive Power isn’t your typical self-help book; it’s much more educational than preachy – and don’t worry, I’m going to explain what I mean by this.
Crabbe, having suffered under the influence of the diet industry for years and survived an eating disorder wants to spread the message of body positivity: loving your body no matter what it looks like.
This book is an education in eating disorders, the diet industry, food marketing, gendered targeting, and so much more. It’s not just for people who suffer from disordered eating, who commit themselves to diets, or who struggle to love their bodies. It’s for anyone who wants to learn about diet culture. Crabbe takes the opportunity to confront the way the diet industry targets women, the cycle of diets that don’t work, the history of diets, and how ‘healthy eating’ shouldn’t just pertain to what food you’re putting in your body.
Towards the end there is a section on exercise and the way society currently reveres fitness. This was super interesting from a linguistic point of view, as well as a body image one. Crabbe notes that much of the language surrounding working out is unnecessarily violent; rather than focusing on the feel-good aspect of fitness, the way we talk about it consists of words like ‘burn’, ‘shred’, and even ‘kill’. Observations like this appear throughout Body Positive Power, allowing the book to explain what is wrong with society’s preoccupation with appearance, but it never once tells the reader they are doing something wrong.
Why I Recommend: Considering a New Perspective
This might seem like an oddly specific book to be recommending – and I hear you. Not every graduate has body image issues, not everyone with body image issues is a graduate.
But sometimes it’s important to look at the issues that don’t affect us, and to learn about them from someone who has been affected by them. Megan Jayne Crabbe has written an incredibly personal, honest book about her relationship with her body, with food, and with the diet industry.
It is shocking how much there is to learn about diets and the diet industry – so much flies under the radar because we accept it as ‘normal’. Crabbe’s book contains so many statistics and examples relating to the encouragement and research of disordered eating that it is, frankly, terrifying.
Diet culture is everywhere around us, and I’m recommending Body Positive Power to graduates because it’s important to continue to educate yourself on real world matters. If we’re going to help improve society, we need to recognise it’s downfalls and Crabbe’s book is definitely a step in that direction.
And to anyone out there who needs to hear this: you’re wonderful just the way you are.
If you want to find out more about body positivity, checkout Megan’s instagram @bodyposipanda or if you want more information on eating disorders, please check out some of the resources listed below:
- B-eat (Beating Eating Disorders)
- mind.org.uk
- Eating Disorders Support
- MGEDT (Men Get Eating Disorders Too)
Written by Megan Corbett, Another English Student
The Struggling Graduate 