Dawn Lerman

Dawn Lerman is a board-certified nutrition expert and a contributor to the New York Times Well Blog. Her company, Magnificent Mommies, provides nutrition education to students, teachers, and corporations. She lives in New York City with her two children, Dylan and Sofia.

Lerman's new book is My Fat Dad: A Memoir of Food, Love and Family, with Recipes.

From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to write a family memoir, and why did you choose to focus it around food?

A: Originally I set out to write a cookbook. My daughter was in preschool; it was her first day. She had [always eaten] healthy food. She never had a tantrum [but after school that day] she was on the floor—she wanted ice cream.

I asked what you had for lunch—[she had] white bread, American cheese, chocolate milk, Oreo cookies. All the kids were running to the [ice cream] truck. I said, that’s not a snack! A snack is a mini-meal with protein…

I started teaching cooking classes at school, and gathering recipes. I started telling the story of each one—with my grandmother, my best friend. A recipe is more than the ingredients. It was recipes with mini-vignettes.

I wrote to The New York Times with the ideas. They were interested in the back story—a 450-lb. dad in the advertising industry. I started writing that. People were writing to me from all over the world, telling me about their grandmother, their dad who was overweight…it just hit a chord…. Then...[read on]

Visit Dawn Lerman's New York Times blog and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Dawn Lerman.

The Page 99 Test: My Fat Dad.

--Marshal Zeringue