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This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World (and Me)
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About This Book
The true story of a cross-generational, beyond-the-grave -- and beyond-the-scale -- friendship that led to the first breakthrough Marisa Meltzer ever had in her quest for self-improvement. Marisa Meltzer began her first diet at the age of five. Growing up an indoors-loving child in Northern California, she learned from an early age that weight was the one part of her life she could neither change nor even really understand. Fast forward nearly four decades. Marisa, a contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Times, comes across an obituary for Jean Nidetch, the Queens, New York housewife who founded Weight Watchers in 1963. Weaving Jean's incredible story as weight loss maven and pathbreaking entrepreneur with her own journey through Weight Watchers, Marisa chronicles the deep parallels, and enduring frustrations, in each woman's decades-long efforts to lose weight and keep it off. The result is funny, unexpected, and unforgettable: a testament to how transformation goes far beyond a number on the scale.
Reviews
"Meltzer's engaging history of Weight Watchers and candid account of her own dieting journey is a frank and affirming portrait of the ways women, in particular, have always coped with health and self-image."
"One especially intriguing point Meltzer raises is the innate narcissism in dieting—both her own and that of the celebrities she regularly interviews for magazine profiles."
"Her story will resonate with readers who have struggled with weight and body image issues ..."
"Other times, it feels as if she's juggling too many things at once — anecdotes, statistics, trends, cultural reportage, personal ruminations and historical shifts ..."
"Meltzer's extensive and very personal homage to Nidetch, as well as her wise and often witty analysis of weight and its inner meaning, can serve as direction for those seeking an ideal of external self-image."
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