I thought this book was informative and gave me a different take on weight-loss and dieting which was entertaining.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and had not heard of these authors before - but discovered that they have a podcast together. One of the authors is a "regular person" and one is a doctor. The book has a humorous tone and looks at dieting history and science.

Food, We Need to Talk is a very long book about the science behind nutrition. The main author interjects humor in the science to make it more relatable but it still dragged on for me and I wasn’t a fan of the vulgarity that was included. It was unnecessary.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book for my honest opinion.

A humorous, science based review of diets, exercise, lifestyle choices and everything you need to know to get healthier. All these while enjoying Juna's ability to amuse you while being dead serious about the true, evidence based information on these topics from her and Dr Phillips research and experience. As a registered dietitian, I’m always on the lookout for books that I can recommend to friends and or/patients. I recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their life in anyway - those that want to get started and those who have been on a path to a healthier life already.

I'm a fan of Juna and Eddie's podcast and it was a nice surprise to see they've written a book together. I love the two of them together and would recommend this book to any young person thinking or obsessing about weight and body image .

This book is full of humor, science, and learning to accept our bodies. It dives into the topics of weight loss, intuitive eating, eating disorders, and the myriad of other ways we directly and indirectly interact with food, and in turn, our body and mind's responses to what we put into our body. I would recommend this book for anyone curious to learn about health and food science.

Food, We Need to Talk by Juna Gjata and Edward M. Phillips, M.D. is a science-based book full of humor on eating, dieting, and accepting our bodies. I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this well-written, informative book. It is a book I will refer to often on my health journey.

It's an interesting take on how to have a healthy relationship with food. In addition, it discusses other factors, such as sleep, that are necessary when noting how popular culture has influenced diet and dieting to the point where it can be unhealthy. Eating disorders are openly discussed without taboos. It seems to be a well-researched guide written with honesty and transparency.

FOOD, WE NEED TO TALK by Juna Gjata and Edward M. Phillips is self-described as "The Science-Based, Humor-Laced Last Word on Eating, Diet, and Making Peace with Your Body." Both authors are associated with Harvard and are colleagues on the health podcast also named "Food We Need to Talk." In this new text, they discuss the history of dieting and health guidelines and offer personal experiences to balance the rather dry science and regulatory information. All of that could be quite entertaining in a podcast, but it is more difficult to wade through in printed form. The authors acknowledge up front that "everyone should have the freedom to decide for themselves what 'healthy' means for them" and "the success of this book hinges on you, the reader, knowing yourself." For me, the authors provide a fairly comprehensive overview but the text is not as action oriented as I had expected. For example, they only utilize about three pages to describe foods that we should eat; the rest of the chapter is devoted to information on ultra processed food. Another chapter covers exercise, again quoting federal guidlelines and listing benefits of various types of exercise without providing suggested workouts or relevant resources. Extensive notes (roughly 25 percent of the preview) are included.

Thank you Net Galley, St. Martin’s Press, and Juna Gjata for an ARC of this book. I enjoyed the author’s candor and humor. The subject matter felt dated and repetitive. No mention of inflammation or its relationship with insulin levels. There was also no real takeaway - don’t eat a lot but also don’t give yourself an eating disorder. :/

Part memoir, part diatribe on modern culture, Food, We Need to Talk is indeed a different kind of wellness book. I struggled to connect with this book and ended up skimming it. The colloquial tone of writing was irritating and it made it difficult for me to take the content of the book seriously, which leads me to believe that as an "elder millennial," I am probably not the target audience for this book. In the end, this book was too much about pop culture and too little about science for my tastes.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press via NetGalley for gifting me with an ARC to review!

I must say that i saw our diet in a new way. FANTASTIC.
Although i am tempted to ask - "What is your source of inspiration to lay down a piece like this?"
I hope u pardon me for this inquisition but my curiosity got the best of me.

This is an informative resource that tells the truth about the many fad diets out there and why they don't work. If you are a veteran of many failed diets, this book is for you.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

As someone who struggles to maintain weight, I quickly tired of the "digs" no matter how comedically well intentioned at skinny people. The book is a light hearted look at weight loss. It works for what it sets out to be though.

Food, We Need to Talk by Juna Gjata; Edward M. Phillips, M.D.
This was a really good book that talked about how are body use food for fuel. Obesity and eating disorders too. This wasn't a diet book but a discussion of eating the right food and how it helps. This had some funny parts too not just a hard discussion. Found this book useful.

Food, We Need to Talk is the latest diet book I’ve read but it is completely different than most diet books. Instead of a diet plan full of restrictions with recipes at the end, this book is full of refreshing ideas about how, and why, plans like that don’t work long-term. According to the book, the last big diet craze, keto, carries too high a risk of causing major medical issues. Also, Ozempic, the current fashionable diet of choice, doesn’t work too well either. Eighteen pounds average weight loss in sixteen weeks is worse than the WW promise and infinitely more expensive.

The book’s conclusion is something you probably already know: there are no quick solutions and exercise is almost always mandatory for good health. However, the fun is watching the authors, a podcaster and a Harvard professor/medical doctor, tear into popular diet strategies. I have done almost everything gored in this book from detox teas to keto. Some do work for awhile but here I sit at pretty much the same weight I’ve been for years. It is nice to know it wasn’t my lack of willpower but a flaw in the strategy itself. 5 stars!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

This was deep dive into bodyweight, health, and wellness. It was well researched and organized almost like a dissertation. The book contained many interesting facts. However, the actionable items are relatively simple and concise. There are no magic bullets, eat well, exercise, and get adequate rest. I thought the descriptions of why fad diets ultimately fall to very interesting.

I thought this book was well written and had a different take on weightloss, dieting, and everything that comes with it.

I really enjoyed this book. Some topics do have trigger warnings (disordered eating discussion) but I really enjoyed the humor and easy way the authors broke down everything from diet culture, to why processed foods aren’t great, and yes why we need to exercise (yes walking is great!) to how sleep is really important.

Full Review: I really thought this was a great book. Some things I already know about, such as needing to add weights if you do want to lose weight and add muscle. About how it's generally not a great idea to just eat tons of red meat, and that sleep really is life changing.

The book is broken down into the following chapters:

-Introductions
-Chapter 1: From the Victorians to the Kardashians
-Chapter 2: Metabolism and the Physiology of Weight Loss
-Chapter 3: Why All Diets Work...Then Don't
-Chapter 4: Weight and Health
-Chapter 5: What to Eat
-Chapter 6: Exercise: The Magic Pill
-Chapter 7: A Love Letter to the Gym
-Chapter 8: Too "Fat" to Have an Eating Disorder
-Chapter 9: From a Dad
-Chapter 10: Stress, Eating, and Weight
-Chapter 11: Why You Shouldn't Sleep on Sleep
-Chapter 12: What Matters Most and Making Lasting Change
-Epilogue

I don't want to describe each chapter, but my favorites were Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and Chapter 8.

Chapter 2 really hit me because I have been hearing for years that I just have to jump start my metabolism to lose weight. This book is like, hahaha, that's BS. I definitely marked up this chapter and it did a great job of helping me think of food and working out differently. Pretty much the authors say, you need to exercise and not try to go into starvation mode when you are trying to lose weight. How many of us have gone on some terrible cabbage soup thing when we wanted to look slimmer? Also BMI is BS.

Chapter 3 was another good one. I lost over 20 pounds pre-pandemic because I really was eating and measuring my food since American servings are a mess LOL. I got back to that recently and just lost another 7. I got promoted last year and with the added stress and lack of time to work out, I put on weight. And I felt sluggish and awful. The past few months getting back to exercise (I love hiking) and just making my own food is what caused the weight to roll off again. This chapter just confirms everything I did and why I was able to keep weight off. It's not fun, but you track your food, I weigh myself at least once a week, I also don't do "flash diets". I do Mediterranean cook for most of my meals because it got recommended to me by my cardiologist and my doctor-generalist because of my father's side of the family and it's history of heart disease. No worries, my heart is great. They even took a look a year ago and said my calcium score meant I could eat fried food for a while if I wanted to (haha).

Chapter 8 was painful to read. I thought it was a very helpful and honest chapter though. Many people out there suffer from disordered eating and it's important to keep that in mind when you are trying to be healthy, to not go so over on the other side that you start to see your body and food as the enemy.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this fun and informative book.

This reads like an amalgam of medical text and memoir, written with humor and warmth. It is NOT a diet book; instead, it provides an overview of current and past obesity research and diet culture. It explains how our bodies use fuel; the role of exercise in weight loss and weight loss maintenance; how sleep affects health and weight; why all diets work at first, why all diets ultimately fail; why dieting isn't the answer to achieving good health.

Since reading the book I've gone on to listen to several episodes of the podcast Food, We Need to Talk and recommend it highly.