Title : The Art of Not Eating : A Doubtful History of Appetite and Desire
Author : Jessica Hamel-Akré
Publisher : Atlantic Books
ISBN : 9781838957049
Genre : Nonfiction
Pages : 281
Source : Publisher
Rating : 4/5

My relationship with food is a tricky one. In the last couple of years, it has taken a different turn. I eat to fill a void – an emotional longing – dents are made by people or by me – I eat to repair, I eat thinking I will come out whole – but I do not. I haven’t for a while now. It is a pity because all the eating just makes me hate the way I look and talk and feel about myself.

I have been asked to lose weight – been told by family, friends, and sometimes even strangers as if I don’t know what I am “supposed” to do. I am not trying to play victim here. Just laying facts.

In all of this, I came across this read: The Art of Not Eating by Jessica Hamel-Akré. The title certainly hit a nerve. The subtitle of this book is “A Doubtful History of Appetite and Desire”. As a fat, gay man, I was drawn to it like moth to a flame. It is more than just the history of diet culture and how it shapes our relationship with hunger. It is also about how Hamel-Akré dealt with desire and food and how the world sees people with desire.

To top this, she delves in the life and times of George Cheyne, an eighteenth-century polymath known as “Dr. Diet”, and how it all connects to the diet fads we follow today. Hamel-Akré writes about the body from such a personal space that it is more than just compelling – you stay with it, and it stays with you. You identify and see yourself in its pages because you know you’ve been shamed too – not just for eating but also to want another body close.

You feel understood once you are done reading this book. You feel someone gets you. It is personal, raw, emotional but not sentimental in its approach, also funny in a way, and quite liberating. I will most certainly go back to this one.