Kimberly Rae Miller is the author of the new memoir Beautiful Bodies, which focuses on the issues of body image and dieting. She also has written the memoir Coming Clean, which looks at her life as the child of a hoarder. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and websites, and her blog can be found at TheKimChallenge.com. She lives in New York City.
Q: Why did you decide to write your new memoir, and what do you
hope readers take away from it?
A: Beautiful Bodies wasn’t originally going to be a memoir;
my plan was to write a comprehensive history of our bodies and our evergreen
mission to change them with some personal anecdotes thrown in for levity.
The first draft of Beautiful Bodies ended up being a bit too
academic and I revisited the idea of adding in my personal narrative in a more
substantial way. As someone who has spent the majority of my career in the
health and fitness media, I knew that I had a unique perspective to add to our
cultural story of dieting.
My hope was to humanize the obsession with perfection that’s
basically thrust upon us, and to show how harmful it is on the personal level.
Q: In both your books, you discuss very personal issues that
involve both you and your family members. What do they think of the books?
A: My parents have been amazingly supportive of my career
and open to being a part of the writing process. They definitely feel
uncomfortable at times, but they’ve never asked me to stop.
Although, in the acknowledgements for Beautiful Bodies I
promise never to write about them again, and my mother has informed me that
she’s holding me to that.
Q: How was the title Beautiful Bodies chosen for your new
book, and what does it signify for you?
A: The original working title for Beautiful Bodies was Skinny,
but I felt like that was a term that had a negative connotation and really put
the focus on one particular body type. I wanted to make the point that all
bodies are beautiful and not single out a particular body type.
While my own body is the focus of much of the book, I’m
careful to never pass judgment on any shape, and to highlight different body
types throughout my research.
Q: How has your attitude toward your body changed since the
time you started writing this book?
A: I was pregnant while writing Beautiful Bodies and that
went a long way toward changing my attitude toward my body and my relationship
to food. You can’t not eat when you’re pregnant and so it was the first time in
my life that I was able to eat without investing my food with any particular
emotional baggage.
My body is shaped differently now that I’ve had a baby; my
waist isn’t as defined, my breasts aren’t as perky, I look a little more
haggard than I did before—but I’m honestly much happier in my skin than I’ve
ever been before.
I credit much of that with the writing process; for me,
writing is a way of processing things. I still think about what I eat and go to
the gym a few days a week, but calorie counting and burning is no longer the
focus of my life.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m in the early research stage of a new book that I’m
not quite ready to go public about. I can tell you that it won’t be a memoir,
but of course, I always say that in the beginning.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I probably have a whole book’s worth of research that got
cut from Beautiful Bodies in the editing process. There are moments when I want
to reference these tidbits in interviews, and then realize that they’re not
mentioned in the final book.
That’s probably the hardest part of writing books, cutting
the stuff that you love, but know doesn’t serve the narrative.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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