When Food Is Love: Exploring the Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy (Plume)

"Buy this book. Geneen Roth is an insightful writer who gives personal experience along with client experiences to reveal issues of her own yet relate it to others. Excellent. "
~ Written on 2008-05-30

"Wow,wow,wow. I purchased this book because it was suggested to me from a friend about a year ago I finally bought it and I am so glad I did. I am a very skeptical person when it comes to self help books, but I have to say this wasn't a self help book at all. Roth makes you truly examine yourself by sharing her story and then asking questions that make you think about why we do the things we do (eat). What feelings are we surpressing? THIS BOOK IS NOT A "HOW TO GUIDE" - it just tells her story and other people stories and I bet anyone could find a piece of themselves in this book. It was funny and light hearted, not drab and psychological. I loved it so much I couldn't put it down and I ended up ordering 2 more of her books - Breaking Free of Emotional & Compulsive Eating.

If nothing else, the book is a great read. I highly recommend it."
~ Written on 2008-05-09

"I am not known for my reading abilities but this was an "easy" read!
Sometimes, Geneen seemed to go into a lot of "personal" stories that might seem like she was losing tract of the purpose of her book. I was often able to see the reason behind it as she was trying to drive a point across by relating her stories (and others') so that the reader can see the relationship between food and love. Overall, I think there were some very good points that she brought out that I never would have seen or thought of had it not been for this book."
~ Written on 2008-04-29

"I don't have anything new to add to the other 5 star reviews as I agree with ALL of them! "
~ Written on 2008-02-11

"I highly respect the work done by Geneen Roth - helping others overcome eating disorders and sharing bits of her own life experiences with us through her writings comforts us in knowing she has 'been there, done that.' She knows what she is talking about. I had heard of 'emotional eating' for a long time but always denied I had any type of intimate relationship with food, but over the past 3 years, going through highly stressful times and gaining 30 pounds in the process, I finally realized one day as I was eating my way through a bag of chips knowing that I shouldn't but feeling totally helpless, I realized that I was treating food as a long-lost-love-of-my-life. I can start a diet on any given day, but rest-assured by lunch time I 'miss' my regular junk so bad that I revert back to my not-so-healthy ways of eating. So I put the chips aside and looked up emotional eating on line and found so much about Geneen Roth and realized she's the one with the great articles in magaizines I've been reading for so long! So I order this book and within a few days I had read it all and had a greater understanding of how I'm using food to shove down my emotions. Instead of turning to people to share my emotions with I turn to food, because food will not reject me and food doesn't care how bad I'm feeling, it is there when I need it and distracts me from the stress in my life. I've never before been able to put into words my unhealthy, unbreakable relationship with food. This book doesn't offer a lot of 'advice' on how to deal with those emotions (I think she has another book for that I'm going to find and read)...but it is all about helping us understand our emotional selves better and our need for good social relationships and not to replace it with a food relationship or some other self-destructive pattern like drugs or alcohol. The first step is admitting/recognizing what the problem is...and this book has helped me do that. And so far since I have read this book I am overcoming my own emotional scars and using food for nourishment and healing instead of using food to comfort me or help me cope (that's what people are for!). Loving myself and being good to myself instead of abusing my body with food. I've always heard that losing weight "is not about the food". Now I really believe it. It's not about will-power or self control. It's about being mentally present and in the moment about what goes on in our minds, instead of mindlessly eating through a bag of chips or a carton of ice-cream or a whole bag of marshmallows. Thanks Geneen! Looking forward to reading more from you!"
~ Written on 2007-11-07