This book was so incredibly interesting, I'm so glad I now know more about the foundations of the weight watchers programme, it was really great to read about.

Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy.

An interesting book. Tackles diet culture alongside the history of the founder of weight watchers. Thought provoking.

This was a really informative, sometimes heart breaking read about the founder of Weight Watchers, intermixed with the authors own journey. A really good, well written read with light moments to counteract the sadder moments.

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is hard to understand. Not the writing itself which is fairly clear. But I’m never quite sure what the author is trying to say. All of her writing seems to be very negative about weight watchers and diet culture in general, but she also seems to want to sincerely lose weight. At the end of the day Jean from weight watchers achieved her goal. She wanted to lose weight and developed a lifestyle change plan to lose and keep weight off. The author has legitimate critiques of diet culture, but she doesn’t seem to have any sort of real success; she rejects the idea of radical lifestyle change, but then seems very upset with the body she has. It almost seems that the writer wants to have her cake and eat it too, which we all know is impossible Weight watchers and OA aren’t for everybody, but for many people they work because those people would prefer to eat low-calorie food and be slim then continue to eat high calorie food and be overweight. If the author had wanted to write her own weight loss journey, that would end with a sort of ambivalent acceptance, that would be interesting in and of itself. But if her plan is to make Jean look bad, that doesn’t come across, if anything it makes the reader like her more. She is a woman who wanted to change and in doing so became a phenomenon. I actually really like her and want to go back and read her book. Maybe the author needed a few extra years of therapy before she took on this project. While I found her portion of the book a bit discombobulated I’m willing to give the book 3.5 stars because I really fell in love with Jean, and I never would’ve known her without this book written by a well-known feminist author that I have loved. So there it is

As a woman who struggles with a complicated relationship with food and exercise I was drawn to this book and interested to find out about Jean Nidetch, the founder of Weight Watchers. I had no idea about her life- I really thought she was going to turn out to be a thin perfectionist who found a way to exploit people desperate for hope and help, taking their money in return for false promises. I was pleasantly surprised to find out about her past struggles and how she used her own personal experience to help others. She was one of the original before and after miracles, loosing the weight and also managing to keep it off for the rest of her life. Meltzer interweaves her own journey with weight and her experience joining Weight Watchers with Jean’s story- one chapter for each- making it a perfect balance of the past and present.

Meltzer brings up so many issues that we all silently grapple with and shows that they are universal- how our parents affect our relationship with food, body positivity and body neutrality, attempting to live up to society's high beauty standards, how we are taught that 'fat' is something that we should be ashamed of. She shrewdly observes that even in the 21st century, society still has problems with food - women say they are following a “clean eating plan" which is a thinly veiled attempt at hiding a real eating disorder, such as orthorexia. Or they say they are cutting out gluten, sugar, alcohol in the name of wellness. Bodies are not allowed to just exist- they must fit the mould shaped by society and this attempt to change our bodies can become a life long obsession.

I really loved this book and will definitely be reading more by Meltzer.

I thought this was a fascinating look at the diet industry, especially the role Weight Watchers and Jean Nidetch have played. If you have read the books like Things No One Tells Fat Girls, Happy Fat and Landwhale, I think you will appreciate this book.

This Is Big by Marisa Meltzer is about the founder of Weight Watchers and about diet culture in general.