Reviews
Overall, Biltekoff's investigation of dietary reform in the last century is powerfully critical and an important reminder of how the politics of food and health are arteries to the politics of class, gender, and economics., "Biltekoff . . . raises important questions about the national dialogue on eating right. . . . Biltekoff effectively forges connections between this extreme and the current craze for organic food and the obesity epidemic. The author shows, carefully and explicitly, that even the most virtuous approaches to healthful eating are based, sometimes unconsciously, in shaming and class and racial biases." - Publishers Weekly, Eating Right in America is a must-read for anyone interested in modern dietary reform. I say that as a scholar who has studied the subject for more than twenty-five years. This concise, well-researched, and provocative book is an instructor's dream, and it is certainly a book that every student and practitioner of nutrition, dietetics, and food science should read and ponder., Charlotte Biltekoff spells out in great and fine detail how the science of race improvement, Malthusian economics, and an obsession for producing healthy (and fat) babies merged into a post-World War II world of the ultrathin driven by ideologies of health and religion. . . . I am delighted that Charlotte Biltekoff and Duke University Press have confronted the claims of how we must make better citizens in our fantasy of how they should be made to eat., "A brilliant, intersectional analysis and a thoroughly enjoyable read, Eating Right in America brings long-overdue skepticism to the insalubrious history of food- and weight-related finger wagging in America." --Marilyn Wann , author of FAT!SO?, The book presents an important, timely reflection on the dietary discourse in the USA, contributing to the fields of food studies, nutrition, public health and the emerging fat studies., "This is the book I dreamed of-without having the grown-up words for it-when I was a chubby little kid who rode her bike everywhere and ate her veggies and still got picked on for being fat. A brilliant, intersectional analysis and a thoroughly enjoyable read, Eating Right brings long-overdue skepticism to the insalubrious history of food and weightrelated finger wagging in America." -Marilyn Wann , author of FAT!SO?, " Eating Right in America is a must-read for anyone interested in modern dietary reform. I say that as a scholar who has studied the subject for more than twenty-five years. This concise, well-researched, and provocative book is an instructor's dream, and it is certainly a book that every student and practitioner of nutrition, dietetics, and food science should read and ponder."-- Warren Belasco , author of Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food, Eating Right in America is a welcome addition to the field of food studies. It directs a critical--but not wholly unkind--eye to the various ways that dietary reformers in America have encouraged eating ''right,'' and it very clearly makes its argument that discourses on food and nutrition reflect understandings of good citizenship and class membership, not simply the most up-to-date science of diet and health., "This is the book I dreamed of--without having the grown-up words for it--when I was a chubby little kid who rode her bike everywhere and ate her veggies and still got picked on for being fat. A brilliant, intersectional analysis and a thoroughly enjoyable read, Eating Right brings long-overdue skepticism to the insalubrious history of food- and weight-related finger wagging in America." --Marilyn Wann , author of FAT!SO?, "Eating Right in America is a must-read for anyone interested in modern dietary reform. I say that as a scholar who has studied the subject for more than twenty-five years. This concise, well-researched, and provocative book is an instructor's dream, and it is certainly a book that every student and practitioner of nutrition, dietetics, and food science should read and ponder."--Warren Belasco, author of Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food"This is the book I dreamed of--without having the grown-up words for it--when I was a chubby little kid who rode her bike everywhere and ate her veggies and still got picked on for being fat. A brilliant, intersectional analysis and a thoroughly enjoyable read, Eating Right brings long-overdue skepticism to the insalubrious history of food- and weight-related finger wagging in America."--Marilyn Wann, author of FAT!SO?, " Eating Right in America is a must-read for anyone interested in modern dietary reform. I say that as a scholar who has studied the subject for more than twenty-five years. This concise, well-researched, and provocative book is an instructor's dream, and it is certainly a book that every student and practitioner of nutrition, dietetics, and food science should read and ponder."- Warren Belasco , author of Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food, Biltekoff . . . raises important questions about the national dialogue on eating right. . . . Biltekoff effectively forges connections between this extreme and the current craze for organic food and the obesity epidemic. The author shows, carefully and explicitly, that even the most virtuous approaches to healthful eating are based, sometimes unconsciously, in shaming and class and racial biases., Eating Right in America achieves its mission to encourage readers to reconsider what we think we know about nutrition science, dietary advice, and health, as well as how they operate within American culture. This is a book to press eagerly into the hands of any nutrition student or dietetics professional, so that they may first consider and then transform the social messages that are included in the dietary advice that they impart., This is the book I dreamed of--without having the grown-up words for it--when I was a chubby little kid who rode her bike everywhere and ate her veggies and still got picked on for being fat. A brilliant, intersectional analysis and a thoroughly enjoyable read, Eating Right brings long-overdue skepticism to the insalubrious history of food- and weight-related finger wagging in America., [A] magnificent book that successfully accomplishes the often-difficult balance between academic rigor, general accessibility, and social advocacy . . . This is an important book that will find particular enthusiasm among historians of food, fat studies, science, medicine, and consumption., "Eating Right in America is a must-read for anyone interested in modern dietary reform. I say that as a scholar who has studied the subject for more than twenty-five years. This concise, well-researched, and provocative book is an instructor's dream, and it is certainly a book that every student and practitioner of nutrition, dietetics, and food science should read and ponder."--Warren Belasco, author of Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food "This is the book I dreamed of--without having the grown-up words for it--when I was a chubby little kid who rode her bike everywhere and ate her veggies and still got picked on for being fat. A brilliant, intersectional analysis and a thoroughly enjoyable read, Eating Right brings long-overdue skepticism to the insalubrious history of food- and weight-related finger wagging in America."--Marilyn Wann, author of FAT!SO?, Well-written, thoughtful, and provocative.... Her work will serve as a jumping-off point for more exploration of what the millions of people affected by dietary reform thought about it and, perhaps even more fundamentally, how they ate differently, or did not, as a result. Eating Right in America should get food scholars, and everyone else, thinking and talking.
