As Gay discusses her history with dieting, I was reminded of a recent piece, “ Losing It in the Anti-Dieting Age,” in the New York Times by author Taffy Brodesser-Akner.

Gay often highlights the shame associated with living in her body, and speaks to the complex relationship that she has with body acceptance and weight management.

She discusses her plans to gain weight in an effort to hide from the world after an experience of sexual abuse as a child, followed by a heart wrenching account of living in what she sometimes terms an “unruly” body. Gay explains in detail the experience of living in a large body as a Black, queer woman in America. In the genre of memoirs about food and eating, Professor Roxane Gay’s recent release “Hunger: a Memoir of (my) Body,” provides a much needed perspective.