Embracing Personal Revolutions in "More, Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for 'Enough'"

By Angie Raney on July 25, 2024

Content Warning: This review discusses the topics of eating disorders and fatphobia.

Nowadays, celebrities proudly don corsets so tight they inhibit the wearer's ability to breathe. Fads like Ozempic and the Paleo diet blaze their way through society, so it's no surprise that an estimated 9% of the US population will suffer from an eating disorder at some point during their life. Though a harrowingly common reality, why then are eating disorders and fat bodies so misunderstood, stigmatized, and taboo in today's climate?

Emma Specter's debut memoir, More Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for "Enough," certainly doesn't shy away from this question. Investigating society's obsession with compulsory thinness and diet culture while sharing her personal struggles as a recovering binge eater, Specter spotlights traditionally marginalized individuals of all shapes, races, sexualities, genders, and abilities. In exploring how society contributes to Specter's relationship with her body and food, More Please also examines the villainization of fat bodies and emphasizes the life-saving power of shared community.

Structurally, More Please moves with ease. Specter's unique ability to meld wit—and I mean extreme wit because she is hilarious—and honesty with powerful socio-cultural critiques is impressive. The book takes on a truly Herculean task in unpacking institutionalized fatphobia and its consequences; however, Specter organizes her criticism in chapters that mirror phases of the author's own life and disorder, which makes for a well-rounded and astute analysis. The chapter "Watch" tackles how adolescents are influenced by conventional beauty standards and bodily representation in the media. "Fear" utilizes heavy personal recollection to explore how fear lies at the root of disordered eating. In "Hope," Specter lays everything bare—reflecting on her own path to recovery whilst emphasizing that such is a lifelong process of failure, dedication, and support. "Lose" provides a scathing criticism of wellness culture, as well as a look into the mentality behind perfection and compulsory thinness. "Gorge" explores the intersections of queerness, sex, and disordered eating, while also highlighting the pitfalls and freedom of community. "Gain" recounts the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on society's perspective of what is "healthy," documenting the structurally racist, hyper capitalist, ableist, and sexist nature of fatphobia. "Move" is an ode to exercise of all forms, while "Taste" leaves readers with a reminder to be kind to your body and to celebrate every version of yourself. Bolstered by interviews and accounts from prominent writers like Roxanne Gay and Leslie Jamison among many others, Specter has created a moving piece on the beauty of the fat body and the resilience of eating disorder survivors.

While I'd like to discuss this book solely as a reviewer, I can't. Like many—specifically, those who unfortunately find themselves in that aforementioned 9%—disordered eating has been a pervasive and pesky character in my life as well. While reading More Please, I couldn't believe the similarities between Specter's experience and my own: in the anxieties that characterized her adolescence, the perspectives and practices ruled by obsession and fear, and her eventual path to recovery. While each and every individual's experience is different, I have never felt so seen by an author or represented by a piece of literature and I think this speaks to a major point of the memoir.

The insidiousness of disordered eating lies in its ability to isolate and shame its host. Compounded with society's fixation with "turning fat bodies into community property to be spoken about, but never to," and the conflation of fatness with some moral inferiority, eating disorders revel in loneliness. Yet, with the influx of body-positive influencers and commentators comes a sacred space for healing. Specter writes of the incredible impact of such a community, stating, "Every time I saw a fat person loving and being loved out loud on the internet, it felt like some immeasurable unit of the hatred I had for my new body dissolved, and I even began to see myself as a tiny part of that lineage." As we collectively recognize fat bodies as ones that are intrinsically beautiful and deserving of love, we can begin to finally heal our own relationships with food and unpack internalized fatphobia. By sharing her own story in all its heartbreak, messiness, and triumph, Specter has provided a safe space to relate, celebrate, and accept.

This begs the question then: how do we accept who we are and what we look like? I'm not even close to having an answer myself, but Specter would say it's in declaring a truce with your body, challenging preconceived notions, and understanding that no version of you—no matter its shape, color, or ability—is wrong.