As a result, she’s finally a size zero. She’s also the newest resident at Wallingfield, a treatment center for girls like her—girls with eating disorders. Elizabeth is determined to endure the program so she can go back home, where she plans to start restricting her food intake again. She’s pretty sure her mom, who has her own size 0 obsession, needs treatment as much as she does. Maybe even more. Then Elizabeth begins receiving mysterious packages. Are they from her ex-boyfriend, a secret admirer, or someone playing a cruel trick?

    Life-Size shoots straight for the heart of our country's obsession with food and image.

    In the first part of the book Jo Davenport writes with raw intensity about Alice's illness and what she hopes is her recovery. At ten, Alice was an easy going, free spirited child with a tremendous sense of humour and adored by everyone who knew her. At eleven, she started to develop her 'rigmaroles' - little rituals which grew into severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - and then, at fourteen, turned into anorexia. Jo describes her journey through what she calls Planet Anorexia, recognising the amazing support she received both professionally and personally and telling of the long periods of despair, guilt, anger and, as the mother of a much-loved child, sheer terror. By opening her heart and writing this book her wish is to pass on her experiences as the mother of an anorexic child, to share all her doubts, failures, anxieties and eventually some successes in the hope of supporting other families going through the same trauma. In the second part of the book Alice, now eighteen and on the road to recovery, also looks back over the past eight years. recovery, other sufferers she met, and her relationship with her mother, friends and siblings. Finally, Jo brings the story up to date and offers guidance and hope to others who love and care for an anorexic child.

    Isabelle describes the scene at school with bemused accuracy--the self-important (but really not bad) English teacher, the boy that is constantly fixated on Ashley Barnum, the prettiest girl in class, and the dynamics of the lunchroom, where tables are turf in a all-eyes-open awareness of everybody's relative social position.But everything is not normal, really. Since the dealth of her father, Isabelle's family has only functioned on the surface. Her mother, who used to take care of herself, now wears only lumpy, ill-fitting clothes, cries all night, and has taken every picture of her dead husband and put them under her bed. Isabelle tries to make light of this, but the underlying tension is expressed in overeating and then binging. As the novel opens, Isabelle's little sister, April, has told their mother about Isabelle's problem. Isabelle is enrolled in group therapy. Who should show up there, too, but Ashley Barnum, the prettiest, most together girl in class.

    Skin Game employs clear language and candid reflection to grant general readers as well as students an uncensored profile of a complex and unsettling disorder. "[This] mesmeric memoir examines the obsession with cutting that is believed to afflict somewhere around two million Americans, nearly all of them female," Francine Prose noted in Elle. "[Kettlewell's] language soars and its intensity deepens whenever she is recalling the lost joys and the thrilling sensation of sharp steel against her tender skin."

    Her beloved father died, leaving her alone with a narcissistic mother who is quick to criticize her daughter’s appearance. During her winter break from college, Kayla’s dangerous obsession with losing weight begins.Kayla feels like her world changes for the better overnight. Being skinny seems to be the key to the happiness she has desperately been seeking. Her mother and friends shower her with compliments, telling her how fantastic she looks. Kayla is starving, but no one knows it.Cameron Bennett explodes into Kayla’s life. He’s sexy and kind—he has every quality she has been looking for in a guy. As Cameron grows closer to Kayla and learns of how far she’s willing to go to stay thin, he becomes desperate to save her.Kayla’s struggles with anorexia and bulimia reach a breaking point and she is forced to confront her body image issues in order to survive. She wonders if Cameron could be the one to help heal her from the pain of her past.New Adult Contemporary-Ages 17+ due to language and sexual situations.

    Greenfield's photographs are paired with extensive interviews and journal entries from twenty girls and women who are suffering from various afflictions. We meet 15-year-old Brittany, who is convinced that being thin is the only way to gain acceptance among her peers; Alisa, a divorced mother of two whose hatred of her body is manifested in her relentless compulsion to purge; Shelly, who has been battling anorexia for six years and has had a feeding tube surgically implanted in her stomach; as well as many others. Alongside these personal stories are essays on the sociology and science of eating disorders by renowned researchers Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Dr. David Herzog, and Dr. Michael Strober. These intimate photographs, frank voices, and thoughtful discussions combine to make Thin not only the first book of its kind but also a portrait of profound understanding.

    I look in the mirror. My face has gone hot and red; I feel like I'm going to explode. "I'm fat." It sizzles under my skin, puffing me up, pushing me out, making me massive. Weight has always been a big issue in Carmen's life. How could it not? Her mom is obsessed with the idea that thin equals beautiful, thin equals successful, thin equals the way to get what you want. Carmen knows that as far as her mom is concerned, there is only one option: be thin. When her mother sweeps her off to live in the city, Carmen finds that her old world is disappearing. As her life spirals out of control Carmen begins to take charge of the only thing she can -- what she eats. If she were thin, very thin, could it all be different?

    Sherry Shahan's SKIN AND BONES, pitched as ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST meets LOVE STORY set in an eating disorder hospital in which an aspiring ballerina and a quirky nerdboy fall desperately in love only to become each other's next deadly addiction, to Wendy McClure at Albert Whitman

    Aimee Liu's true account is also a portrait of middle-class adolescence in early 1970s America.

    No, I didn't have time for that, because I had found the answer to my prayers.This has to be it.Eat all the fruit you want.Never get fat.Raw. Food. Diet.Rachael Steil clocked in as an All-American collegiate runner; she became a girl clawing for a comeback on a 30-bananas-a-day diet. This year-long struggle with raw food ended when she realized she had to find her self-respect beyond her identity as a successful runner on a perfect diet. Running in Silence opens the door on the secret world of eating disorders. It provides vital insights for those who don't suffer from this disease and an honest and harrowing personal story for those who do. Steil challenges the stigma of eating disorders, looks past appearance, and dives into the heart of obsession.

    But then Cassie suffers the ultimate loss—her life—and Lia is left behind, haunted by her friend's memory, and feeling guilty for not being able to help save her.In her most powerfully moving novel since Speak, award-winning author, Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia's struggle, her painful path to recovery, and her desperate attempts to hold on to the most important thing of all—hope.

    The task her father has given her is to learn twenty words a day, read the New York Times at least twice a week and watch Masterpiece Theatre whenever he tells her to, mostly because he likes it. Then Billie discovers her sister's secret: Cassie is battling anorexia and Billie's parents excuse Cassie's weight loss as stress due to the competitive atmosphere at college. Billie knows something is drastically wrong with her sister; something that could be fatal.This novel is touching and funny and moving, and it got great reviews. And Billie Weinstein is so wry and humorous a protagonist, she's the kind of girl every woman wishes she'd had as a best friend growing up.

    Cliques form and break apart. Couples are made and destroyed. And a reputation is solidified that you won’t ever be able to escape. Everything you do and say, and everyone you spend your time with, matters.Katie Mills knows that. She gets it. That’s why she tried so hard to get in with the cool girls at school. And why she was so devastated when those efforts found her detained for shoplifting and laughed out of cheer squad tryouts.But Katie has more to worry about than just fitting in. Her parents are divorced and always fighting. Her sister never has time for her. And her friends all seem to be drifting apart. Even worse? The boy she has a crush on is dating the mean girl at school.Everything is a mess, and Katie doesn’t feel like she has control over any of it. Certainly not over her weight, which has always topped out at slightly pudgier than normal—at least, according to her mother.So when she happens to catch one of the popular girls throwing up in the bathroom one day, it sparks an idea. A match that quickly engulfs her life in flames.Is there any going back once she gets started down this path?And would she even want to if she could?

    The family retreats to the seclusion of a small Pennsylvanian town, where a host of rich characters all play part in Olivia's struggle to understand her disillusionment with Christianity and gather courage to fight the eating disorder threatening her health.