From the author:
I am a Ukraine-based psychologist. My fifteen years of work at the largest weight-loss clinic in Ukraine have convinced me that it is pointless to say to a teenager, “OK, here’s your calorie limit, get in shape! Oh, and don’t forget to hit the gym!” A person has to transform their eating habits and the way they see themselves and food.
An interesting story may help. I think many of the 61 percent of overweight or obese adults in England or two billion such people on the planet as a whole would agree. After all, inside each of them you can still find that same teenager.
Only I can know how many cycles of losing and gaining weight I might have been able to avoid if I had had a book like this in my hands back when I was 14.
— Nataly A. Sedova 🇺🇦
Three fourteen-year-old kids, overweight Alex and Varya and their loser friend Zeus, show the middle finger to their school bullies and find themselves in a consumption-obsessed dimension called Measurland, created by God and the devil as part of a bet. At stake in this bet is power over the universe.
Witnessing a battle of heavyweight Gorgers and a beauty pageant of animated fast food, raiding an ancient palace and attending a weight-loss industry expo, meeting a ghost of food emotions and sabotaging a tastifier factory – these are just some of the things our three characters will go through in their fight against the ruling Corporation.
Finding the mysterious Pyramid will grant one eternal power over Measurland. That is what an old prophecy says. Who will get to the Pyramid first – the Corporation, or the kids?
The Scales of Harmony can help the kids defeat the Corporation. But the Scales will grant their wishes only if Sasha and Varya lose weight. How do you do that if you have been fat your entire life and feel hungry all the time? Blaming hunger, the kids are sent into the castle of Hunger the Wizard, and from there – into the historic Great Famine of 1933.
Measurland: The Secret of Hunger is the first of a seven-book series that readers will call a Harry Potter for weight strugglers.