This is Big
How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World (and Me)
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
'A life-changing book' Viv Groskop
Marisa Meltzer was put on her first diet aged five: it was the beginning of a fraught relationship with food.
Jean Nidetch was a housewife from Queens who defiantly lost 70 pounds after she was mistaken for being pregnant. Taking everything she learned from this experience, in 1963 she founded Weight Watchers, a company that has shaped decades of diet culture.
When Marisa reads Jean's obituary, she feels a moment of intense connection. Curious about the woman and her legacy, she signs up for a year of Weight Watchers; counting points, weighing in and listening to her fellow members struggle with their bodies.
This is Big is a biography of an idiosyncratic entrepreneur whose impact is still felt strongly today. It is a history of dieting and body politics for anyone who has agonised over their weight or defiantly tried not to do so. And it is Marisa's funny and thoughtful journey towards a different way to live in the world.
'This is the anti-diet book I've been waiting for' Daisy Buchanan
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Meltzer (Girl Power) delivers an insightful look at the business of weight loss, illustrated by her own attempts at it, and by those of late Weight Watchers founder Jean Nidetch. Meltzer begins by describing her relationship to the ubiquitous weight loss company, which, she once felt, existed only to torment her Meltzer was a Weight Watchers dropout by the age of nine. After coming across Nidetch's obituary in 2015, however, Meltzer was surprised to find her longtime b te noir both relatable and inspirational a woman who lost 70 pounds, and kept it off, and confronted 1960s sexism to found a now-global company. Meltzer explores how Nidetch and Weight Watchers changed with the times, in the '70s moving into creating exercise plans, nutrition educational campaigns, and other offerings outside of its originally single-minded focus on dieting. One especially intriguing point Meltzer raises is the innate narcissism in dieting both her own and that of the celebrities she regularly interviews for magazine profiles. The result is a thoughtful exploration of how to make diet choices on one's own terms, rather than in "fear of the final weigh in."
