The recovered possess the key to overcoming anorexia. Although individual sufferers do not know how the affliction takes hold, piecing their stories together reveals two accidental afflictions. One is that activity disorders—dieting, exercising, healthy eating—start as virtuous practices, but become addictive obsessions. The other affliction is a developmental disorder, which also starts with the virtuous—those eager for challenge and change. But these overachievers who seek self-improvement get a distorted life instead. Knowing anorexia from inside, the recovered offer two watchwords on helping those who suffer. One is ‘negotiate, ‘ to encourage compromise, which can aid recovery where coercion fails. The other is ‘balance, ‘ for the ill to pursue mind-with-body activities to defuse mind-over-body battles.
Table of Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Negotiating Anorexia
PART I: THE DISEASE: AN ACTIVITY DISORDER
Chapter 1. The Person: Working with Interviews
Chapter 2. Medicine: Reworking Cartesian Knowledge
Chapter 3. The Stories: Respecting Diversity
Chapter 4. Bioculturalism: Seeing Holistically and Historically
Chapter 5. Bodily Bent: The Individual’s Constitution
Chapter 6. The Activity: How Ascetic Doing Takes Over
Chapter 7. The Core: Elementary Anorexia
PART II: THE LIFECYCLE: A DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER
Chapter 8. Youth: How Adolescence Invites Anorexia
Chapter 9. Coming of Age: Meeting an Imagined Real World
PART III: MODERN TRADITIONS: CULTURAL PATHS INTO ANOREXIA
Chapter 10. Virtuous Eating: A Modern Morality
Chapter 11. The Conflicted Body: Sympathy and Control as Competing Virtues
Chapter 12. The Attractive Person: A Modern Appearance Ethic
PART IV: RECOVERY: FINDING BALANCE
Chapter 13. Getting Out: Undoing Anorexia
Chapter 14. Staying Out: Redoing Life
Epilogue
References
About the author
Penny Van Esterik is a retired Professor of Anthropology from York University where she taught nutritional anthropology, advocacy anthropology and feminist theory. Past books include Beyond the Breast-Bottle Controversy, Materializing Thailand, and Food and Culture: A Reader (edited with Carole Counihan).
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