"The power of the book lies in [its] vast clinical experience.... Eminently readable and filled with clinical anecdote.... Invaluable."—The Lancet Here is a basic source of information on the dynamics of eating disorders, written by two therapists who pioneered in treating them. This accessible and empowering book now adds four new chapters: "Anorexia Nervosa: Sociocultural Perspectives," "Intensive Psychotherapy with Anorexics," "Surviving Managed Care" (addressed especially to therapists), and "Our Daughters, Ourselves." The book includes stories of bulimic and anorexic women in their own words—sympathetic peer-group voices to encourage women who have begun treatment or are considering it. The author also describes new school and college programs designed to help students who have eating disorders. Marlene Boskind-White draws on twenty-five years of clinical experience to set forth what actually works to combat and overcome bulimia and anorexia, focusing on ways to strengthen positive attitudes and develop practical coping skills. She evaluates new therapies and new medications such as Prozac and presents essential information on physiology and nutrition. "I give this book my unqualified endorsement."—Jean Rubel, Ph.D., Anorexia Nervosa and Related Disorders, Inc. "An outstanding contribution to the literature of eating disorders."—Albert D. Loro, Jr., Ph.D., former director, Eating Disorders Program, Duke University Medical School

Here, collected for the first time, 19 writers describe their eating disorders from the distance of recovery, exposing as never before the anorexic's self-enclosed world. “This anthology lends remarkable texture to a subject that has been too often sensationalized and oversimplified.” —The New York Times Taking up issues including depression, genetics, sexuality, sports, religion, fashion and family, these essays examine the role anorexia plays in a young person's search for direction. Powerful and immensely informative, this collection makes accessible the mindset of a disease that has long been misunderstood. With essays by Priscilla Becker, Francesca Lia Block, Maya Browne, Jennifer Egan, Clara Elliot, Amanda Fortini, Louise Glück, Latria Graham, Francine du Plessix Gray, Trisha Gura, Sarah Haight, Lisa Halliday, Elizabeth Kadetsky, Maura Kelly, Ilana Kurshan, Joyce Maynard, John Nolan, Rudy Ruiz, and Kate Taylor.

Down the centuries self-starvation has taken many morbid guises. This story culminates in the 19th century labelling of anorexia nervosa, a condition which has since attracted a host of theories and explanations in the course of which a medical curiosity has been transformed into a modern disease.

This comprehensive encyclopedia supplies the reader with concise information on the molecular pathophysiology of disease. Entries include defined diseases (such as Parkinson's disease) as well as pathophysiological entities (such as tremor). The 1,200 essays are brilliantly structured to allow rapid retrieval of the desired information. For more detailed reading, each entry is followed by up to five references. Individual entries are written by leading experts in the respective area of research to ensure state-of-the-art descriptions of the mechanisms involved. It is an invaluable companion for clinicians and scientists in all medical disciplines.

The First Edition of The Thin Woman, first published in 1998, provides an in-depth discussion of anorexia nervosa from a critical feminist social psychological standpoint. In the original text, the author argues that the notion of 'anorexia' as a medical condition limits our understanding of anorexia and the extent to which we can explore it as a socially and discursively produced problem. The book now has a new introduction that discusses some of the major cultural and academic developments that have occurred since its first publication. In considering our changing cultural landscapes, the introduction goes on to discuss the so-called ‘obesity crisis’; the emergence of post-feminism; the massive global expansion of digital and social media and, most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. Turning to academic developments, it focuses on the increasing recognition of intersectional feminism and reflects on how intersectional perspectives are now beginning to shape critical feminist research and theory in this field. The new introduction also highlights the significant growth in the last 25 years of critical feminist research on eating disorders, which has brought with it a greater awareness of intersectional theory and a more inclusive agenda; an expansion of research foci; a diversification of methodologies and the emergence of more egalitarian models of research in which those with lived experience of eating disorders are becoming valued research team members who help to shape research aims, designs and processes. Based on original research using historical and contemporary literature on anorexia nervosa and a series of interviews with women who identified as ‘anorexic’, this book offers critical insights into this problem. It is an invaluable read for anyone interested in eating disorders and gender, developments in feminist post-structuralist theory and discourse analytic research in psychology.

An analysis of self-starvation as a significant mode of staging political arguments across the institutional domains of the clinic, the gallery, and the prison.

Abstract: Neuropsychiatrics and endocrinologists have intensively studied anorexia nervosa in the past several decades. The chief feature of the disease is extreme thinness and severe weight loss. In general, laboratory findings are not specific for any organic disease, and most victims are extremely physically active. The contradictory roles of the modern woman have been said to influence the development of the disease. Psychological analysis of these patients cannot be done without a complete family history, for personality and home environment play intricate roles in the development of anorexia nervosa.

Early Modern English Noblewomen and Self-Starvation: The Skull Beneath the Skin is a unique exploration of why early modern noblewomen starved themselves, how they understood their behaviour, and how it was interpreted and received by their contemporaries. The first study of its kind, the book adopts an interdisciplinary and highly detailed approach to examining women's self-starvation between 1500 and 1640. It is also the first book to focus on this behaviour among noblewomen. Beginning with a contextual outline of gender, food and embodiment in early modern culture, the book then looks explicitly at the food behaviour of several well-known figures, including Elizabeth I, Catherine of Aragon, Mary I, Arbella Stuart, and Katherine Grey. Each case study engages with a variety of primary sources, such as letters and legal documents, as well as with literary texts, providing an in-depth exploration of the relationship between self-starvation and concepts of autonomy, sexuality, and literal and symbolic imprisonment, highlighting the body and specifically the act of eating as fundamental to identity in the early modern period and today. Employing both literary and historical methodologies, Early Modern English Noblewomen and Self-Starvation is an important contribution to the study of the history of the body and is essential reading for students and academics of early modern women's history, gender history, food history, and the history of the body.

In this wide-ranging and thought-provoking analysis of the sociocultural and personal meanings of food and eating, Deborah Lupton explores the relationship between food and embodiment, the emotions and subjectivity. She includes discussion of the intertwining of food, meaning and culture in the context of childhood and the family, as well as: the gendered social construction of foodstuffs; food tastes, dislikes and preferences; the dining-out experience; spirituality; and the `civilized' body. She draws on diverse sources, including representations of food and eating in film, literature, advertising, gourmet magazines, news reports and public health literature, and her own empirical research into people's preferences, memories, experiences

In his short story “The Hunger Artist,” Kafka imagined the theatrical career of a “professional faster” whose performance consists merely in displaying his own starving body before an avid audience. Kafka thus paradoxically suggested that hunger, mere emptiness working its way through declining bodies, may be a privileged theatrical object. Hunger often signals an anchorage in socio-historical reality, and invites extreme situations on stage, articulating large-scale cataclysms (famines, the devastation of war) with personal tragedies (hunger-strikes, anorexia, etc.) in which characters experience the tenuousness of their own lives. Whether in the comic or in the tragic mode, staged hunger metaphorizes various kinds of starvation – material greed, spiritual, emotional, sexual starvation, and even linguistic insufficiency. This volume explores the aesthetic and ethical issues raised by hunger on the stage in the English-speaking world. It investigates the paradox of the hypervisibility of the thinning body and shows how, throughout history, hunger has given shape to innovative, powerfully transgressive dramaturgies.