cover image YOUR DIET IS DRIVING ME CRAZY: When Food Conflicts Get in the Way of Your Love Life

YOUR DIET IS DRIVING ME CRAZY: When Food Conflicts Get in the Way of Your Love Life

Cynthia Sass, Denise Maher, . . Marlowe and Company, $14.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-56924-474-6

Although its title implies that this book will address the conflicts that arise when one half of a couple goes on a diet like Atkins or The Zone, dietician and nutrition expert Sass and freelance writer Maher instead explore how one person's unhealthy relationship with food can ruin his or her love life. Sass differentiates between food pet peeves, such as eating with the television on or leaving the milk out, and more serious food conflicts: e.g., when one person becomes a "food cop" who monitors every morsel going into the other's mouth, when a couple can't find time to eat together, when a vegetarian and omnivore become romantically involved, when an individual needs to change his or her diet for health reasons, when one partner unconsciously makes the other overeat or when one person has an eating disorder. To help couples facing any of these critical problems, the authors present the SANITY model, an acronym for "See the problem"; "Ask your partner to understand the problem"; "Negotiate a compromise"; "Imagine creative solutions"; "Take advantage of outside resources"; and "Yuck it up... to dissolve tension." This hard-to-remember acronym may be too vague to be of any use, but the charts, quizzes, role-playing scenarios and direct advice dotted throughout the book are useful. If readers can see past the misleading title, they'll find a wealth of information to help them laugh all the way from the kitchen to the bedroom. Agent, Carole Bidnick. (May)