Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works

First published in 1995 and now in a third revised edition, this guide to eating for nourishment and pleasure has been updated with new material and research supporting the authors' clinical experiences over nearly two decades. Tribole (Healthy Homestyle Cooking) and Resch are nutritional therapists specializing in eating disorders, and their focus is on links between food, fear, guilt, and compulsive behaviors associated with futile dieting cycles. Each chapter is like an extended therapy session, with the bonus of case studies, insights, charts, and step-by-step guidelines to revisit while working through the 10 Intuitive Eating principles (making peace with food, coping with emotions, etc.). The authors explain why diets fail to produce enduring weight loss, sabotaging the body's natural signals for hunger and satiety; and how perfectionism%E2%80%94strict calorie counts, obsessive workouts, etc.%E2%80%94ensures defeat. In place of food restriction and calorie counts, they offer "gentle nutrition" (i.e., food choices honoring health and taste buds) and feel-good exercise as great incentives toward success. Parents will appreciate a chapter on preventing eating disorders and obesity in children, and readers suffering from eating disorders and their families will find hope and realistic advice on healing even longstanding, intractable cases. (Aug.)