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Posts Tagged ‘exercise’

‘Stronger: Changing Everything I Knew About Women’s Strength’ by Poorna Bell

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on July 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »

In this non-fiction book, powerlifter and journalist Poorna Bell discusses the barriers for women and minorities when it comes to getting into exercise. She uses her own story about how she got into powerlifting following the suicide of her husband, and talks about how gyms and personal trainers need to be more inclusive. She also incorporates societal barriers and diet culture, such as how particularly for women, exercise is generally viewed as a way of losing weight, and women are encouraged to do cardio while men are encouraged to lift heavy weights (I’m not actually sure that this last point is actually the case based on my own, admittedly very personal, experience).

There is an important message here – yes, gyms need to be more inclusive and welcoming for women (again in my experience most gyms are already), minorities, and people of all genders and sexualities. The issue is that it feels like every few pages there is the message to ‘make gyms more inclusive’ – but how this can be done is never really explored, and it ends up just feeling like a bit of a rant.

I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the book – certain parts did resonate very strongly, especially the parts about diet culture, and I thought the parts about how Poorna Bell came to deal with her own grief surrounding her husband’s death were very poignant. However, I do feel that this was a book in bad need of an editor – each chapter was just a list of people from a certain category (maybe a certain age group, religion or sexuality) who described how they felt that exercise was not for them, and then a call for personal trainers and gyms to be better equipped to welcome people from every way of life. It ended up feeling repetitive, and I’m not entirely sure that this wouldn’t have been better as an article rather than a full length book.

I do also feel that while Poorna Bell speaks very highly of the two personal trainers she has herself had, and the gym that she belongs to, the book almost felt like an attack on gyms as a whole and personal trainers in general.

So overall – a great message gets lost in the repetitive style of writing. BUT I enjoyed the parts about Poorna’s own family and her love of powerlifting.

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‘Drop Dead Healthy’ by A. J. Jacobs

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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In a nutshell: Journalist A J Jacobs decides that it’s time to get healthy, but rather than gong down the more conventional route of eating better and moving more, he decides to focus on a different part or area of the body each month and investigate how to make that particular part the healthiest it can be. This involves learning about lots of differing and (often contrasting) health theories and experiments/studies, and speaking to several experts. There’s a fair amount of quackery going on, but Jacobs takes note of everything he hears, and is prepared to give anything a try.

It’s definitely entertaining and often amusing. For my money, it was not “riotous, madcap” as one review on the cover put it, and it did not make me “laugh my ass off,” as claimed by another review. But it was engaging and easy to read – it explored the science and thinking behind the studies and claims, but did not get too bogged down in technicalities. Jacobs is clearly a huge worrier and he knows it – something that I identify strongly with – and catastrophises a lot, always imagining the worst case scenario (again – this was hugely relatable to me). He’s very engaging and very likeable, which heightened my enjoyment.

One thing to note is that Jacobs lives in New York and this book is very American leaning. Not a problem for me, but some of the things that he tries might not be so accessible to people who don’t live in such a metropolis where everything conceivable relating to health is pretty much on the doorstep!

It’s not a healthy living book, and certainly not to be taken as guidance, as he himself makes clear.

Im summary, if you are looking for a hilarious madcap adventure, then I would not say that this is it. But it was an enjoyable and if you like (mostly) light-hearted non-fiction, then you might well enjoy this.

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‘Just Eat It’ by Laura Thomas

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on February 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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Registered dietician Laura Thomas has written this book to help anyone who has ever had issues surrounding food, body image, dieting etc. and to help them adopt intuitive eating (IE). IE is NOT another diet in disguise as a healthy eating plan, and not another way to restrict what we eat – Thomas makes it clear that that is the polar opposite of what she wants to achieve.

This book resonated strongly with me, as someone who has had a mixed up relationship with food and body image for something like 30 years. It actually made me cry at certain times as I recognised the symptoms of disordered eating which she writes about. Crucially though, for the first time, I felt like there is light at the end of the tunnel and that there IS a way to get out of this cycle, and to have a healthy relationship with food.

Written in an engaging, entertaining and accessible way (Thomas is quite sweary and so am I, so this didn’t bother me, but may be worth pointing out to some readers), there are exercises for the reader to complete and each chapter focuses on different aspects of the issues being discussed.

This is an important book, and one which I highly recommend to anyone who has ever felt bad for eating too much, gone on yet another restrictive diet to lose weight, judged foods as good as bad, and or let a number on the scales dictate how good a day they are going to have.

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‘Eat Sweat Play’ by Anna Kessel

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on October 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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In this non-fiction book, sports journalist Anna Kessel investigates the role and treatment of women in (mainly) competitive sport. I’m going to be honest and say that this was not entirely what I expected; the sub-title ‘How Sport Can Change Our Lives’ led me to think that this would be a study of how sport or exercise can make us feel good, give us confidence and improve our health and fitness. As someone who partakes in a lot of high intensity, but non-competitive exercise, this really appealed to me.

However, the book is actually a feminist study of how women have been treated in the world of competitive and professional sport throughout history and right up until the present day. Despite being not what I thought it was going to be, for the most part this was an enjoyable and thought-provoking read. I liked that it talked about how exercise in general for women is generally only promoted in popular media in terms of how it can improve our looks and our sex lives. (I was looking at the cover of a so-called health magazine aimed at women recently, and almost every headline was talking about how to get sexy legs, or washboard abs, how to have better sex etc – instead of focussing on the health benefits. This is something that I feel particularly strongly about.) It also talked about the issues that girls suffer in PE at school – if you are not naturally athletic for instance, you are generally written off from day one. At least this is how it has been for many young girls, although I am certain it is the same for boys too.

The book is very clearly well researched, with interviews with several sporting personalities or women working in sport, and Kessel underlines some of the discrimination that women are subject to in sport – it amazes me that in 2007, there was such a huge furore about a woman commentating on Match of the Day! What century are we living in for goodness sake?!

However, a lot of the book focussed on aspects that didn’t interest me so much – obviously this is a very subjective opinion, but I have zero interest in football, whether it is played by men or women, and so I did struggle to keep my attention for the parts of the book dedicated to the passion of football fans.

I also would have liked more about exercise in general, not necessarily competitive or professional sport, and an exploration about how we should be exercising for health and well-being, rather than to get the perfect beach body, would have been very interesting.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in sport and/or feminism. I liked Kessel’s engaging and conversational writing style and will keep an eye open for more work by her in the future.

 

 

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