CC Sanders's Reviews > I am Elephant, I am Butterfly

I was extremely disappointed by this book. I was hoping to get into a book about eating disorders and being able to empathize with an obese teenager. What it ended up being was somewhat harmful.

“We’re excited, too, but y’all have to settle down if we wanna make it to dinner on time.”
The room quieted like she wielded a machete."

While written from the perspective of an obese teenager it never felt like it truly was. It was hitting cliches and not once did it hit on thoughts such as fears and struggles an obese person would really have.

“I have no routine, unless you want to include thinking about food, dreaming about food, drawing pictures of food on the damp mirror after my showers”"

The main character does not want to be in fat camp - thats understandable. But please raise your hand if you are/were obese and would find considering fast food companies your best friends relatable.

“I wanted to say, Mom, don’t leave me here. I don’t belong here. I belong at home, spending the summer with my best friends: Bojangles, McDonald’s, Smithfield’s, and the DQ.”

All we hear about is her fear of not being able to stuff her face - while using language that people would use that are making fun of obese people (like "stuff her face" her "friends" as fast food chains" calling themselves "fat whales"). She simply has no personality aside from - food.

“I couldn’t picture my mother and me digging in the dirt together. She had her hobbies, like spin class, and I had mine, like finding new ways to make a sub.”

But never do we hear about real insecurities or thoughts that I have heard from every single person that I talked to that has experienced obesity. Instead we have a weirdly naive and surprised kid - borderline portrayed as obese equals stupid? What kid going to “fat camp” would be surprised that exercise is going to be on the schedule?

“Exercise?” I asked. The brochure had called the camp a retreat. I’d pictured groups of girls making macramé plant holders and friendship bracelets out of gimp. Relaxing in hammocks while listening to the birds.”

And then we get to the portrayal of the fat camp - if a fat camp exists that truly operates like this, it needs to be closed down immediately. Instead of realistically helping kids to eat healthily, knowing they might be scared about the eating situation coming into this camp, instead of easing them in and showing them amazingly delicious options they are paraded down the line of their family eating hearty delicious meat loaf and mash only to find a selection of different simply cooked veggies. As a person living mostly on whole food plant based I have never in my life felt like the sound of veg to be this boring and bland and - and this is the crucial part - nutritionally unbalanced. You can have a scoop of cooked spinach or a scoop of cooked corn or a scoop of cooked green beans. How is this helping? Where are the carbs, the healthy fats that these kids need - especially when you are planning on pushing them through drill exercises all day every day that make them puke? There are so many things where the camp is traumatizing kids, it is borderline abusive and a torture center, not something that is supposed to help healing. I am also low-key suspicious about the size a garden would have to be to fully supply 100 kids on a 1200 calorie, veg-based diet over the whole summer. (Historically to completely feed yourself using hand labour takes about an acre per person - but that is based on year-round with seasons and rotating crops and more food requirements than a couple months in the summer)
What's even worse is that while some of the coaches are saying some of the right words, the actions within the camp are displaying the exact opposite.

“People have a misconception that they have to spend their days eating celery and running marathons. We are going to kick that rumor into the gutter. Now. There are dozens of ways to enjoy exercise. Just like there are dozens of ways to change your diet. We’re here to show you creative ways to do both. A little creativity goes a long way.”

And the complete lack of understanding what it truly feels like to move with a bigger body - only judgmental notes sprinkled throughout the whole book.

“Laughing, cheeks bright red, heads nodding to the music, whale-like bodies moving with an odd sort of grace through the water.”

A camp making obese kids do monkey bars as part of an obstacle course - is that part of the creative fun way they mentioned? How many obese people do you think can lift their own body weight? Ever occurred to you that that is not sport, that is embarrassing and torture? How are kids supposed to learn that moving can be fun by making them go through that? It just shows how oblivious the author is to understand what it truly means to move with the extra weight a morbidly obese person carries around.

“Another girl—three-fifteen—dangled three rungs in front of me, kicking her legs but not moving forward. Another in the lead would fall, jump up to catch the bars, then fall again. The girl in front of me slipped and landed hard on her butt. I had barely gripped the first rung when I followed her to the ground.”

“Keep moving!” Ms. Diggs shouted. “You don’t want to get kicked in the head!”

Only to go on in this obstacle course for obese kids to have small hoops to embarrass the kids that they can’t even fit? What the actual fuck! (Simone at 250lbs seems to be one of the lighter kids overall)

“Pushing the voice away, I moved on to the Hula-hoops, but the plastic ring never made it higher than my knees.”

We never really get to exploring the "disorder" part of eating disorder. The main character mainly is portrayed as somebody who likes stuffing their face but finds fat people disgusting. After drilling, exhausting, and embarrassing the kids, you send them to be alone with their thoughts without any mental guidance / help / support? That should end well.

“Reflection time,” Ms. Diggs sang as she handed each of us a power bar before shooing us away like little flies. “Think, pray, write, sing, be one with yourselves.”

In some sessions, we then have the right words again that gave me a glimmer of hope - because this is so extremely important

“You’re here because you need to gain insight into who you are. By searching within yourselves, you can discover why you do the things you do. Food addiction is not about the actual food. It’s about the way food makes you feel. The way it overtakes your life. The way it controls you.”

Only to straight jump to very clearly making a point that obesity and overeating always and only comes from physical or emotional abuse and that the only way to cure obesity is by being truthful with yourself and figure out that abuse. All you have to do is break people because every fat person has another issue. But we never tie that to food. We just break them in a few hours and voila. All better.

“They nodded with understanding, because they, too, had let a particular moment in their lives define who they were, what they had become. I no longer wanted to be defined by the guilt eating me alive on the inside and the fear responsible for adding layers of protection on the outside. It was as though with every exposed detail, a tiny little pound melted away.”

It further hints toward that being thin is the solution to everything and you will almost automatically become thin once you were able to admit to yourself what abuse caused it and worked through it. Obesity does have many more layers than simply "stop eating and start moving" and yes, a lot of it will by psychological, but putting it all on abuse is ridiculous and harmful.

Overall it just felt like the author had a huge disconnect with what it really feels like to be in the main characters shoes - they are even ziplining in the camp which is supposed to be another proof of moving = fun and excitement. That might be possible with a special construction (max weight normally is 275lbs) but the person who wrote this really never has been in an obese mind to know how just the idea of ziplining probably tortures and traumatizes at least half the overweight kids. Adding the continuous judgmental nudges just sets a very weird tone that feels deeply disconnected.

“I couldn’t imagine sharing a room with nineteen other fat, sweaty girls, all stretched out on their beds at the same time while trying to get their shorts pulled up. No wonder so many of my bunkmates didn’t change their clothes before bed. Too much work.”

Things that realistically an obese kid would struggle with - not a mention. She bends down and thinks it’s great she even gets past the knees because she’s out of shape. No mention of the belly in the way. You can really tell when the author never walked in the shoes of their main char. Instead of fears we have judgement in her voice.

“A few girls fell over into the sand. Tim-ber!”

There were so many opportunities to portray throughts, insecurities, and fears (I talk about a few of them in my video) and the author completely failed to utilize any of it. None of the thought processes that a truly obese person would have are explored. None. It felt so much like how a skinny girl would picture a cliche fat kids mind without doing research that I had to look up if the author truly is obese herself. I was not surprised when I found out that she was in fact not and does not seem to have a history of being obese either. I might be wrong, but it honestly felt as if she got her picture of what a fat camp should look like from watching Biggest Looser and some abusive dreams.

While the kids in “fat camp” are mostly described by their name & weight - and maybe their ethnicity, this is how the first skinny character outside Simone’s family is introduced.

“A thin pretty girl with silky smooth skin and polished pink nails, her long blond hair tied back in a high ponytail, sparkly earrings dangling from her tiny lobes. Her bottom lip stuck out in a perfect model’s pout.”

The only thing this book did somewhat well was creating empathy for skinny people - the book did show that they are not just/simply pretty but might have problems too. Saying "hey, as a morbidly obese person, people know you are struggling with this, but you are fetishising and glamorising how we, as skinny people are looking and with that might be feeding into a disorder I might have"
It felt much more like the author had some real insight on this side of the story. This is definitely not what I picked the book up for but if the author would write a story solely on that last part with that as a main hook, I think it could be really helpful and great.

But potentially the most harmful thing happens at the end of the book - with a call to action for the reading teenagers to reflect. There is one question that scared me and I hope the editor/author will remove in future copies … do you really think you have equipped kids to offer sound, non-judgmental, non-condescending advice in this book?

“Does someone you know have an eating disorder? Have you tried to help this person? If so, how? Were they open to your advice?”

Please. Stop.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Typing up my notes (looking at my emotional to angry reactions on goodreads updates) a few months later I need to reduce my rating from 2 to 1 star because I am still so angry and all the things that made that extra star for me cannot be looked past when looking at how harmful this book really can be. Also find my thoughts right after reading it in my wrap up video: https://youtu.be/tHEgyTrqd7o?t=1064