Tell Me How You Eat - Food, Power and the Will to Live

If you are what you eat, what does that make you ? Virtuous? Cool? Immortal? Or deviant, pitiful, ill? Is it useful to make these judgements? Do they help us improve our lives? In a world where it feels as though the value of your life can be gauged by the goodness in your dinner, it is possible, even easy, to lose the will to live. This became particularly obvious to writer Amber Husain when suddenly, despite almost thirty years of practice, it seemed she had forgotten how to eat. Medical wisdom tries fix the problem non-eater by teaching them the rules of Good Diet. But what if the problem is precisely the narrowing of life to questions of personal goodness? Suspecting there might be more to her stand-off with food than matters of identity and diet, Husain embarked on an enquiry into the special role of eating in our relationship with the world. Combining a personal account of modern eating-disorder treatments, from the disturbing to the sublime, with a sprawling collective history of eating in hard times, Tell Me How You Eat unearths the astonishing effect of how we feed ourselves and others, not just on who we are, but on how we perceive our own political power. In doing so, it marks a bold and inspiring confrontation with our very understanding of food.

About the author

Amber Husain is the author of Replace Me (2021) and Meat Love (2023). Her essays have been published in Granta, New Left Review, The White Review, The Believer, Bookforum LA Review of Books and New York Times Magazine. She has a PhD in art history from UCL and teaches critical and creative writing.

Product details

• Authors: Amber Husain
• Publisher: Bantam UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 05.02.2026
• EAN: 9781529154337
• ISBN: 978-1-5291-5433-7
• No. of pages: 272
• Dimensions: 138 mm x 222 mm x 25 mm
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); SELF-HELP / Eating Disorders & Body Image, Political activism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Agriculture & Food, Food & society, Eating disorders and therapy, Autobiography: philosophy and social sciences, Cultural studies: food and society, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Activism & Social Justice, Political activism / Political engagement, Coping with / advice about eating disorders