Emma Woolf

Emma Woolf is the great-niece of Virginia Woolf. After studying English at Oxford University she worked in publishing, before becoming a full-time writer. She is a columnist for The Times and The Daily Beast and also writes for The Independent, The Mail on Sunday, Harper’s Bazaar, Red, Grazia, and Psychologies. She was a co-presenter on BBC Channel 4’s Supersize vs Superskinny; other media appearances include Newsnight, Woman’s Hour, and Radio 4’s Four Thought. Emma’s first book, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia was shortlisted for the Best Award for Recovery Inspiration. She was also nominated for Mind’s Journalist of the Year. She lives in London.

Books

An Apple a Day

A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

A woman suffering from anorexia struggles to understand the cause of her eating disorder and, more importantly, becomes determined to stop starving and start living.

I haven’t tasted chocolate for over ten years and now I’m walking down the street unwrapping a Kit Kat . . .

Remember when Kate Moss said, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"? She’s wrong: chocolate does. At the age of thirty-three, after ten years of hiding from the truth, Emma Woolf finally decided it was time to face the biggest challenge of her life. Addicted to hunger, exercise, and control, she was juggling a full-blown eating disorder with a successful career, functioning on an apple a day. Having met the man of her dreams, and wanting a future and a baby together, she decided it was time to stop starving and start living. Honest, hard-hitting, and spoken from the heart, An Apple a Day is a manifesto for the modern generation to stop starving and start living.

The Ministry of Thin

How the Pursuit of Perfection Got Out of Control

We’re obsessed with weight, we dislike our bodies, we worry about the food we eat, we feel guilty, we diet. Too many of us are locked into a war with our own bodies which we’ll never win, and which will never make us happy. The Ministry of Thin takes a controversial, unflinching look at how the modern, international obsession with weight loss, youth, beauty, and perfection has spun out of control. Emma Woolf, author of An Apple a Day, explores how we might all be able to stop hating and start liking our own bodies again. She rallies against the industries of food, health, exercise, beauty, sex, and surgery that seek to create a world that verges on the Orwellian —with the victims of this onslaught trapped and dominated by the societal pressures to conform.

And she dares to ask: if losing weight is the answer, what is the question?