Waisted

OK, so I admit it, I am one of those women who has been obsessed with my body since my teen years.  Always looking at others thinking I should be thinner, that I should have smaller thighs, that if my breasts were smaller I would look better in my clothes.  Dieting was the focus of the 1970s and

it is only now, looking back from the weight I am today, (not thin), that I can see how great I really looked back then.  Oh to weigh now what I weighed in High School!!!

But finally, I think, I am mostly happy with myself and even though it would be nice to fit into that dress or those pants, I am happy with myself and not stressing over my weight.  I am enjoying every day and exercising only because it is good for me...nothing in the extreme.

But I will say that to sit reading a book about dieting and food and extreme exercising and weigh ins, makes you think about eating and what should I eat as a snack while I am reading.  So those cookies or chips probably are not a good idea and I should be eating some carrots or apple slices instead... oh does it ever really end??

Waisted  by author Randy Susan Meyers is an incredibly well written novel with clever, witty repartee.  The characters are well drawn and the descriptions of the weight loss program is an accurately created exaggeration of the weight loss TV programs. It is really true, the question of what lengths will people go to to achieve the ideal body.  and also the idea of almost never being happy with the body you have and always having to maintain that level of intense exercise and restraint to keep the beautiful body when you get there.

So many of us grew up with Jewish mothers who thought they were helping us and themselves going from diet to diet and at the same time telling us to eat and finish everything on our plates.  

This is the story of three women who meet after they each for different reasons feel that their relationships with men would be improved if they were thinner.  They are, of course, obese so that there is a reason to try and lose so much weight that they go to get help.  The ad they each have answered promises weight loss with dignity and caring.  What they find is a group of people who are using humiliation and degradation to manipulate them and see how far they are willing to go to achieve their dream.

Over a light lunch, Randy Susan talked about her childhood, growing up in Brooklyn NY with her mother and shopping with her grandmother.  Each of her novels are based on stories she has experienced and she does say that her personal characteristics are evident in the characters in her books.  She talks about her relationship with food and about all the women she interviewed and research she did about what women go through to work toward their ideal body.  personally, Meyers feels she has reached a good relationship with food and her body. 

Randy Susan Meyers is the bestselling author of Waisted, Accidents of Marriage, The Comfort of Lies, The Murderer’s Daughters, and The Widow of Wall Street. Her books have twice been finalists for the Mass Book Award and named “Must Read Books” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. She lives with her husband in Boston, where she teaches writing at the Grub Street Writers’ Center.