A review by michelle_bracher
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Did not finish book. Stopped at 25%.
I just couldn't with this book which is yet another self-help book that assumes everyone wants to either lose weight or bulk up at the gym. The amount of fat phobia, body shaming and food judgement in this book is shocking. Despite saying early on that people shouldn't be goal orientated, it seems every paragraph has a comment on losing weight or giving up 'junk food'. Clear's fat phobia became very explicit when he casually drops the line 'Getting in shape can help improve your health and your dating prospects' - excuse me?! He also bangs on a lot about weight and health despite the fact that you can't see someone's health from their size and that anorexia remains the most fatal mental health disorder. The author needs to do some serious reading about Health at Every Size (HAES) and start looking at his own lazy sterotyping before he starts preaching to others about their habits. 
Clear is also guilty of severely cherry picking his anecdotes, claiming in one that the British cycling team started winning more after their new coach started implementing better sleep routines, training equipment, and outfits and neatly overlooks the fact that around the same time British cycling got a huge monetary injection from the British government allowing them to afford all those things for the first time. 
Clear is not a doctor, a dietician, a nutritionalist or a psychologist - he is a blogger who has managed to cobble together enough articles for a book. 
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