Edinburgh Book Festival: Susie Orbach

In 1978 Susie Orbach, a psychotherapist, wrote her first book "Fat is a Feminist Issue," (FIFI), a self help guide to losing weight without dieting. Thirty years later, our society in the western world appears to be divided into the overweight and obese contrasting with the compulsive need for young girls to be size zero. Orbach's new book "Bodies" investigates the modern day compulsive obsession with staying forever young and beautiful.

With Jackie McGlone in the chair, asking a series of penetrating, pertinent questions on body image, she began by looking back at the classic study, FIFI as a ground breaking, timely commentary on women's love-hate relationship with food and eating disorders.  In the 1970s there was no internet or social networking blogs available to share the debate on the subject. And so the book was written, based on her own experience of dieting and the role of mothers who set an eating pattern in family life.

Conversation then turned to the present day obsession by both men and women with being thin, fit and youthful through cosmetic surgery and working out in the gym.  A key aspect with regard to eating well, suggested McGlone, is social class, describing the case where working class mothers handed chips and crisps to their junk food-deprived children through the school gate after the Jamie Oliver campaign for healthy school lunches.

In a wide ranging discussion Orbach talked about BMI (body mass index) which is, she says, an inaccurate test if George Clooney and athletes are said to be obese; she criticises media pressure to have the perfect face and body shape of celebrity singers, actors and models, adding that every image is digitally enhanced; young teenage models pose in Vogue like erotic, porno film stars, sending the wrong message to naïve fashion conscious girls; we hear that there are high heeled shoes designed for babies and sexy lipgloss is worn by 6 years olds.

Thirty years ago FIFI was an anti diet psychology book to help women lose a few pounds naturally. Today the diet industry (from low calorie meal replacements to appetite suppressant drugs) is worth billions along with cosmetic surgery which promises to modify your body to perfection.  No wonder Susie Orbach still has to continue her campaign to change the way we view ourselves, to understand and accept our own natural  female and male body shape.

"Bodies" by Susie Orbach is published by Profile Books