Review: Anxious Eaters: Why We Fall for Fad Diets, by Janet Chrzan and Kima Cargill

Abstract

Book Review| August 01 2023 Review: Anxious Eaters: Why We Fall for Fad Diets, by Janet Chrzan and Kima Cargill Anxious Eaters: Why We Fall for Fad Diets, Janet Chrzan and Kima Cargill, New York: Columbia University Press, 2022, 360 pp. $28.00 (hardcover); (eBook) Chad Lavin Chad Lavin University at Buffalo, SUNY clavin@buffalo.edu Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar clavin@buffalo.edu Gastronomica (2023) 23 (3): 93–94. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2023.23.3.93 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Chad Lavin; Review: Anxious Eaters: Why We Fall for Fad Diets, by Janet Chrzan and Kima Cargill. Gastronomica 1 August 2023; 23 (3): 93–94. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2023.23.3.93 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentGastronomica Search This intensive study of fad diets opens with the enticing query: “Why this diet, and why now?” (p. 10), and quickly teases that an answer will be found in “the forces that make diets available” or the “cultural channels” through which they flow (pp. 10, 45). That’s a bit misleading, suggesting a political economy of the diet industry, which this book is not. Instead, authors Janet Chrzan (an anthropologist) and Kima Cargill (a psychologist) offer something more interesting. They argue that people embrace diet fads because they promise silver-bullet deliverance from the stressors of modern life. The book identifies four categories of fad diet: food removal (your classic “avoid X or Y” diets), food addiction or affliction (similar, but focusing on the eater’s particular sensitivity to the offending food, rather than the food itself), Clean Eating (predicated on the idea that some foods or practices are toxic and must be... You do not currently have access to this content.