Women Food and God: My Review
May 14, 2010 by Kim T
Filed under Emotional Eating, Grow Spiritually
Note: Below is my original review of Women Food and God. Since then, I have since taken a closer look at the book and recorded a video with my additional thoughts. You can listen to it at the end of this post.
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You may have heard of a new book called “Women Food and God” by Geneen Roth about compulsive overeating. I heard it was featured on Oprah, but I discovered it by accident while browsing popular books on Amazon. The title intrigued me, so I bought it.
But I stopped reading on page 16. More about that later, but first I want to share a conversation I read on an earlier page. The author has a retreat for women who compulsively overeat and this is what one attendee told her over dinner. It is startling:
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Laurie, a thirty-five year old CEO of a Boston mortgage company, raises her hand. “I am not hungry, but I want to be. I want to eat anyway.”
“Why is that?” I ask.
“Because it looks good and it’s here, right now. It’s the best comfort in town. What’s wrong with wanting comfort from food?”
“Not a thing,” I say. “Food is good and comfort is good. Except that when you are not hungry and you want comfort, food is only a temporary pallative; why not address the discomfort directly?”
“It’s too hard to address things directly, too painful, and there isn’t any end to it. And if it’s going to be endlessly painful, then at least I have food,” she answers.
“So you figure that the best you can get out of life is cold vegetable soup?”
When she talks again, her voice is quivering. “It’s the only true comfort I have and I am not going to deprive myself of it.”
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That hurt my heart because I was once in the same place as Laurie. Even though I was “saved,” I did not trust God for comfort. At that time, I didn’t view him as one who loved me and could heal my pain. Instead, I viewed him as ready to judge and condemn me.
Reading that conversation alone was worth the cost of Women Food and God for me, but I stopped reading on page 16 because of this author statement: “It doesn’t matter whether we believe in one God, many gods, or no god.”
Oh, but it does matter! I believe there is no such thing as a weight management issue; it is all ultimately a life management issue.
Your belief about God determines how you view life, approach it, and what you expect from it. If you believe there is no god, then all you have is yourself as the compass to discern what is good and right. And we know all know how self-deceptive humans can be.
If you believe in many gods, then how do you know which to follow in a given situation? God is not the author of confusion.
I believe in the God who says in Isaiah 44:6: “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.”
It makes a big difference when you view yourself as a daughter (or son) of the King.
I believe in the God who heals as said in Psalm 147:3: “He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds.”
And I believe in the God who comforts, protects, and leads me in the right way as said in Psalm 23:4: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
I have a personal relationship with the one true God, which I obtained through the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6): Jesus.
So I say to Laurie and to anyone else suffering from compulsive eating: “God is the true source of comfort and he wants you to expect more from life than cold vegetable soup! He wants you to experience eternal life, which is that you may know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent.”
Open up your heart and let God comfort you. Trust him and you will be healed.
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Video Follow-up Review: Author’s Views on God
Did you find this information on overcoming compulsive eating useful? You can learn a lot more about starting the healing process through achieving a closer relationship with God and how to achieve healthy weight loss. Check out my Take Back Your Temple eBook and the 8 bonuses that come with it.
Kimberly Taylor, C.W.C.
Certified Wellness Coach
Author of the ‘Take Back Your Temple’ ebook
http://www.takebackyourtemple.com/book
Hello everyone. While I too believe in one God; I have had a lifelong struggle with weight. I do not believe that this book should be completely shut down because the author is trying to encompass all people’s beliefs(making the book more sell-able). I am strong enough in my own beliefs to weed out her “god” info, but to utilize the information about overeating. I am continuing to read the book but using prayer in place of some of her more new age technique. The main focus is that you can trust that your body will tell you when to eat and when to stop and that we must stop hating ourselves and depriving ourselves as a means to making ourselves into a version we love. Ultimately, she is reminding us that we are made wonderfully and we can trust in the bodies we have been given.
Hi Lybarra,
Thanks for your post! I posted my review to help others make a more informed decision about whether to purchase the book. They might be like me…buying the book hoping that the author was going to discuss the role of God in healing emotional eating. But like you said, I too concluded that placing God in the title was her marketing tool to make the book more salable. I was quite disappointed by that.
When I read her comment that it didn’t matter whether you believe in many gods or no god, my spirit was grieved and wouldn’t allow me to read any further. It sounds like you are comfortable with your choice. Each person has their own unique walk with the Lord and ultimately, Spiritual discernment should be your guide.
I would urge you all to give Geneen Roth’s book another chance. I have read the book in its entirety and I immediately began to reread it, Bible in hand, in order to find scriptures to go along with her ideas and suggestions.
I have a very strong faith in God and in Jesus Christ as my Savior. I also believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in us all and it is that Spirit within us that Geneen Roth’s book addresses. She speaks of the moment or perhaps moments in our lives when the world broke that Spirit and took with it our ability to believe in the Lord and in ourselves and we instead turned to food for comfort. She speaks of embracing our amazing, imperfect lives, and seeing the beauty in the world, but more importantly, the beauty in ourselves, the Spirit within.
While she does maintain neutrality regarding specific religions, please do not allow that to prevent you from the potentially life changing ideas she shares in this book.
Thanks Shari – I appreciate your viewpoint. The more information everyone has about the subject to judge for themselves, the better. Spiritual discernment must be our guide. When I purchased the book, I admit that I was hoping that Ms. Roth would write about the God who healed me of binge eating. The God that I’ve come to know personally as my Comforter, my Refuge, my Strength, my Joy, my Wisdom, and my Truth. He loved me enough to give me his word, providing real answers and stability on which to build my life. The God I was hoping to see in the book was one of power and relevance – one who has the power to change lives. And he has a name – I AM (Exodus 3:14).
But in Ms. Roth’s book, she said that it doesn’t matter if you believe in many gods or no god. According to her, you can take God out of the picture and her methods still work. To me, that is very telling about the importance she ascribes to God if it doesn’t matter if you believe there is one. When I read her statement I wondered, why put God in the title if you say it doesn’t matter if you believe in him or not? And if you don’t believe in God, should you pretend to believe in order to follow her methods?
I think my opinion of the book may have been different if she had not put God in the title. Then, I would have had no expectations and would have evaluated her ideas on their own merits. But having been healed by God of emotional eating, then I cannot maintain neutrality on the point of his identity.
I do give Ms. Roth credit for bringing awareness to the issue, but I was unable to get past the “many gods/no god” statement. It’s a risk that every writer takes that someone won’t agree with the message they convey. I am sure that there are people who won’t explore TBYT because they see plainly that the God I write and talk about who heals is the God of the bible. It’s a risk I am willing to take because I experienced his healing power for myself and cannot pretend otherwise.
So my review is really for those who might be in the same position as I was – hoping to see that God in Ms. Roth’s book and may be disappointed by that expectation when they get the book.
Hi. I appreciate the book review. I had also seen her on Oprah but was leery about purchasing the book because of some strange characters Oprah has on her show at times. I enjoy researching diet articles/books, but when they are not in line with the Bible, I prefer to not read them. Thanks again for the helpful insight. God Bless.
I saw Geneen Roth on Oprah and bought the last copy of the book available that same weekend. As I began to read it, I came to the same conclusion that you did, Kim. And I almost took the book back to get a refund! How could someone include “God” in her book title and then say it doesn’t matter if you believe in one god, many gods, or don’t believe in Him at all? But “something” told me to keep reading the book, which I am. While I fundamentally and spiritually don’t agree with Ms. Roth’s stance on God, I am gaining some great insight on my relationship with food. Kim, I’ve gotten from you and other spiritual leaders wonderful guidance about how to grow in my relationship with God and how to treat my body as God’s temple. But, as I started to look for my receipt to return the book, I was reminded of a sermon I heard preached many years ago–God can always use the devil to do a good deed! It’s my prayer that we all be delivered from the hold food can have in our lives and discern how God wishes to use our temples for His service.
Kathy, you are welcome. That is my viewpoint as well. I’ve been thinking about the book’s influence a lot lately. My guiding reason for not reading past Ms. Roth’s “many gods/no god” statement is the scripture Psalm 1:1, which says that the man is blessed who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. A cautionary tale of this is the life of King Solomon. He asked God for wisdom and God granted it to him in such abundance that that was no king like him. It says that he was beloved of God. Solomon even wrote in the conclusion of Ecclesiastes that the ultimate meaning of life is to fear God (which means to reverence, respect, honor) and to depart from evil. And yet even the wisest man who ever lived failed to take his own advice; at the end of his life, he allowed the influence of his wives, who worshiped many gods, to turn his heart away from God. The many wives was an issue in itself!
So if the wisest man who ever lived was not immune to the influence of ungodly counsel, then who am I to think that I am? I believe that Solomon grew prideful and began to trust in his own wisdom. In the end, he was deceived and stopped honoring the one who gave him the wisdom in the first place. I never want to make that error – the bible says in 1 Corinthians 10:12: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” I am following that advice by taking heed.
Hi Karura – you’ve given me food for thought and I thank you for your prayer. I do appreciate your compliments but I consider myself a Spiritual learner, not a leader. All I am doing on this website is sharing what the Father is teaching me.
I no longer have my copy of the book and read another reviewer’s praise of it. She said that this quote is near the end of ‘Women Food and God’:
“–God has been here. She is you.”
I had to go to a bookstore and thumb through a copy to find it to verify it is in there and it is – on page 201.
When I read that quote, I got chills and not the good kind. I am greatly concerned. Many people who are reading it are emotionally vulnerable and looking for answers. Most of them do not know God personally. I fear that in embracing Ms. Roth’s ideas about overcoming food addiction, they will also embrace her ideas about God, which are false and destructive. I say destructive because in my own healing, I discovered that one of the habits I had to overcome was thinking I had to control everything – which extended to other people. In healing, I had to learn to surrender control to God.
Encouraging other people to think of themselves as God, while on the surface would seem to be a self-esteem booster, will only put them in further bondage ultimately. Life and your own character weaknesses quickly shows you that you are not God. You can’t create a single rock, let alone make sense out of the world. Freedom is found in having a relationship with the true God, who loves and cares for you. You allow him to do the heavy lifting as the Creator, allow him to perfect that which concerns you, and to have peace as his beloved creation.
In overcoming food addiction, I learned that it is critical to secure your emotions with the truth. The truth I live by and was reinforced in my own healing process is this: 1. There is a God. 2. There is only one God. 3. He is not me.
Hi, Kim! I’m writing from Taguatinga-DF-Brazil. It’s so curious that the problems with our bodies, is the same at everywhere! Here, be fat is a shame, is a big problem! I’m very happy ’cause I found your comments under the Geneen Roth’s video and here I am. God is So GREAT!! I’m fighting with my body, my belly, my life, at all. But my hope is in my Saviour Jesus, I’m waiting for His salvation of a lot matters in my way. He knows me, deeper!! I’m alive today, because HE has mercy for me!! I want to serve Him all my days and I want to win my fight with emotional hunger. He yet help me to lose 38 Kg during 1 year; but the sadness from my conjugal life has take me to depression and illness. Well, I’m praying for freedom, victory and health. I know my REDEEMER lives and He will give me the perfect love, joy and a healthy body, like I was next last year. Thanks a lot for your decision of be a real witness from God’s Truth!!! Allelluia!!!!!!!!!!!! A hug from Brazil.
Thank you for the review. Like others I was going to buy the book because of God in the title. I thought I would be getting God’s view on emotional eating.
Presently I am on “A Journey to Self Discovery.” I’m trusting God to help me understand the root cause of my unbalanced relationship with food. I’ve gained and lost the same 50 pounds, over, and over, and over, and over….again! Well this is going to be the last time.
My focus is on God. I have a strong, intimate relationship with Him. I have strong faith. He’s done so much for me and I love Him. Why I didn’t consult Him on this problem I really can’t say. I just believed this was an area I could handle. I’ve since learned that without Him I really can’t handle anything. So, I’ve begun again. I’m in First Place 4 Health, A Christ centered weight loss program that focuses on the Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, and Physical parts of our being. I’m doing the Bible Study, “God’s Purpose For You” with the group. It’s an awesome program! I’m spending time at His feet, reading His Word, listening to Him, praising Him, and talking to Him. I am determined that this will be the last time I will fight this particular battle because I’m going in God’s strength and with His help. I truly believe that no weapon formed against me will prosper.
I believe this is a God ordained connection. I was watching the book on EBay but didn’t bid because I wanted to check the store price. I went to B&N and read only one review – yours. Why my eye was drawn there only God can say. You mentioned your website and I checked it out. I’ve been reading the articles. I’ve been encouraged, blessed, and strengthened to continue on. It helps knowing I’m not alone and that others have gone before me successfully.
Thank You, Abba Father for Your timing and for this Divine connection. God bless you Kim!