‘Mine is not a success story’

shows such as The Biggest Loser and My 600-lb Life but makes little effort to accommodate larger people or support their physical and mental health.

“I really just wanted to talk about what obesity – no, I hate that word – what fat looks like, beyond what people generally see, where you’re talking about someone who is 27kg to 45kg overweight,” Gay says. “I wanted to wrest control of that narrative back from the people who have seized it.”

The book offers a pointed retort to the smug strangers who shoot Gay sidelong glances at the gym or gawk as she settles into an aeroplane seat: here is everything you could have possibly wanted to know about why and how someone comes to live in this body.

“We are human, these are our bodies, and it’s nobody’s business. You don’t get to judge,” Gay says.

She hopes the book “increases the empathy that people have for others in different kinds of bodies. And maybe it will make people mind their business a little bit more”.

As for what it means for her – she’s still living her way into that answer.

“Writing the book has allowed me to just take a hard and necessary look at myself that I had been unwilling to take – at how I got from then to now,” she says. “And to just be honest with myself.”

And has that brought her closer to the peace she seeks?

“We’ll see,” she says. “It’s too soon to know.” – The Washington Post

Hunger - A Memoir of (My) Body, is published by Harper Collins and is available from Loot. co.za for R331. Scan the QR Code tp purchase the book.