FAT COW, FAT CHANCE THE SCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY OF SIZE
JENNI MURRAY Doubleday, 258pp, £16.99
‘Women versus their appetites: that everlasting war,’ Janice Turner lamented in the Times. She is full of sympathy for Murray in her long struggle with her weight. ‘Reading it, I felt a sudden rage that such an eminent person ... should see her life in terms of fat years and thinner ones.’ It wasn’t lack of willpower that kept Murray fat, she continued: ‘What makes it powerful and poignant is Murray, who has tried them all [diets], scrolling back through her 70 years to find the source of her size.... Clearly Murray’s relationship with food and her mother are horribly entwined.’
‘I admire Murray’s bravery in revealing all her indignities in this book: asking for extension seatbelts on planes, needing hip replacements, ignoring cruel catcalls,’ Turner continued. ‘I especially admire her admission that she feels that she cheated when she resorted to a gastric sleeve procedure.’
Liz Jones in the Daily Mail was equally sympathetic: ‘This is a moving, brutally honest memoir about what it feels to be fat-shamed despite, as Jenni is able to prove, the fact that obesity is not due to greed, or lack of willpower.’ Rachel Cooke in the Observer was more critical, noting there are ‘dozens of other books on similar territory that are far better’. She conceded that ‘The book’s USP is Murray herself, a good and widely beloved radio presenter, and thus a woman with many fans.’
‘I’d put this book in every school as a warning to girls – and boys – not to waste their lives obsessing over food,’ Jones concluded.