Intuitive Eating

For my final pre-internship year, I'm going to be working with individuals with eating disorders. I figured I'd try something completely new. When I asked my supervisor what books she'd recommend as introductory readings, “Intuitive Eating” is where she sent me, telling me that it's the only self-help nutrition book out there that she not only tolerates, but actually likes. In short: her assessment is spot-on.

People ask me for book recommendations fairly often (and I'm only a grad student, so I'm guessing it'll get more frequent). It's a tricky question because so many books are so deeply cheesy, and I'm not exactly going for “deeply cheesy” as a psychologist-in-training. Well, hallelujah. “Intuitive Eating” is not cheesy. It is not patronizing. It is not preachy, simplistic, or annoyingly cheerful. It is compassionate, straightforward, and wise. It brims with good, old-fashioned common sense that is too often overwhelmed by the dieting hysteria that has gripped the U.S. for...well, decades, now.

I am sure this book will be invaluable when doing eating disorder treatment. But, if you're reading this, and you're experiencing even just a niggling iota of doubt that maybe you don't have as healthy of a relationship with food as you could (TRULY healthy, none of this sanctimonious all-raw-food-all-the-time crap), then do me a solid, and get yourself to a bookstore ASAP.