We've ranked the best eating disorder books using expert recommendations, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.
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1
Wintergirls
Laurie Halse Anderson
5.0
“Dead girl walking,” the boys say in the halls. “Tell us your secret,” the girls whisper, one toilet to another. I am that girl. I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.
Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.
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2
Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
Marya Hornbacher
4.8
Why would a talented young woman enter into a torrid affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Through five lengthy hospital stays, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and all sense of what it means to be "normal," Marya Hornbacher lovingly embraced her anorexia and bulimia—until a particularly horrifying bout with the disease in college put the romance of wasting away to rest forever. A vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching memoir, Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to reality's darker side—and her decision to find her way back on her own terms.
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Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain
Portia de Rossi
4.8
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Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too
Jenni Schaefer and Thom Rutledge
4.6
Jenni had been in an abusive relationship with Ed for far too long. He controlled Jenni’s life, distorted her self-image, and tried to physically harm her throughout their long affair. Then, in therapy, Jenni learned to treat her eating disorder as a relationship, not a condition. By thinking of her eating disorder as a unique personality separate from her own, Jenni was able to break up with Ed once and for all.
Inspiring, compassionate, and filled with practical exercises to help you break up with your own personal E.D., "Life Without Ed" provides hope to the millions of people plagued by eating disorders. Beginning with Jenni’s “divorce” from Ed, this supportive, lifesaving book combines a patient’s insights and experiences with a therapist’s prescriptions for success to help you live a healthier, happier life without Ed.
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5
Just Listen
Sarah Dessen
4.6
Last year, Annabel was "the girl who has everything" — at least that's the part she played in the television commercial for Kopf's Department Store.
This year, she's the girl who has nothing: no best friend because mean-but-exciting Sophie dropped her, no peace at home since her older sister became anorexic, and no one to sit with at lunch. Until she meets Owen Armstrong.
Tall, dark, and music-obsessed, Owen is a reformed bad boy with a commitment to truth-telling. With Owen's help, maybe Annabel can face what happened the night she and Sophie stopped being friends.
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Intuitive Eating
Evelyn Tribole
4.5
First published in 1995, Intuitive Eating has become the go-to book on rebuilding a healthy body image and making peace with food. We've all been there—angry with ourselves for overeating, for our lack of willpower, for failing at yet another diet. But the problem is not us; it's that dieting, with its emphasis on rules and regulations, has stopped us from listening to our bodies. Written by two prominent nutritionists, Intuitive Eating will teach you:
• How to reject diet mentality forever
• How our three Eating Personalities define our eating difficulties
• How to find satisfaction in your eating
• How to feel your feelings without using food
• How to honor hunger and feel fullness
• How to follow the ten principles of "Intuitive Eating",
• How to achieve a new and safe relationship with food and, ultimately, your body
• How to raise an "intuitive eater"–NEW!
• The incredible science behind intuitive eating–NEW!
This revised edition includes updates and expansions throughout, as well as two brand new chapters that will help readers integrate intuitive eating even more fully into their daily lives.
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7
Thin
Lauren Greenfield, Joan Jacobs Brumberg
4.5
Critically acclaimed for Girl Culture and Fast Forward, Lauren Greenfield continues her exploration of contemporary female culture with Thin, a groundbreaking book about eating disorders. 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.
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Paperweight
Meg Haston
4.5
Seventeen-year-old Stevie is trapped. In her life. In her body. And now in an eating-disorder treatment center on the dusty outskirts of the New Mexico desert.
Life in the center is regimented and intrusive, a nightmare come true. Nurses and therapists watch Stevie at meal time, accompany her to the bathroom, and challenge her to eat the foods she’s worked so hard to avoid.
Her dad has signed her up for sixty days of treatment. But what no one knows is that Stevie doesn’t plan to stay that long. There are only twenty-seven days until the anniversary of her brother Josh’s death—the death she caused. And if Stevie gets her way, there are only twenty-seven days until she, too, will end her life.
Paperweight follows seventeen-year-old Stevie’s journey as she struggles not only with a life-threatening eating disorder, but with the question of whether she can ever find absolution for the mistakes of her past…and whether she truly deserves to.
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Eating in the Light of the Moon: How Women Can Transform Their Relationship with Food Through Myths, Metaphors, and Storytelling
Anita A. Johnston PhD.
4.5
By weaving practical insights and exercises through a rich tapestry of multicultural myths, ancient legends, and folktales, Anita Johnston helps the millions of women preoccupied with their weight discover and address the issues behind their negative attitudes toward food.
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10
8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder: Effective Strategies from Therapeutic Practice and Personal Experience
Carolyn Costin and Gwen Schubert Grabb
4.5
This is no ordinary book on how to overcome an eating disorder. The authors bravely share their unique stories of suffering from and eventually overcoming their own severe eating disorders. Interweaving personal narrative with the perspective of their own therapist-client relationship, their insights bring an unparalleled depth of awareness into just what it takes to successfully beat this challenging and seemingly intractable clinical issue.
For anyone who has suffered, their family and friends, and other helping professionals, this book should be by your side. With great compassion and clinical expertise, Costin and Grabb walk readers through the ins and outs of the recovery process, describing what therapy entails, clarifying the common associated emotions such as fear, guilt, and shame, and, most of all, providing motivation to seek help if you have been discouraged, resistant, or afraid. The authors bring self-disclosure to a level not yet seen in an eating disorder book and offer hope to readers that full recovery is possible.
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11
The Best Little Girl in the World
Steven Levenkron
4.5
I am Kessa!
My parents call me Francesca, and sometimes I answer. But the Francesca who was me is disappearing. The Dietrichs' good little girl is dropping away with every bit of fat. Kessa doesn't have to eat--eating is messy, not clean. I'll just move the food around on my plate, and they'll think I've eaten some. Then I'll go to my room and dance. I'll be thin and beautiful...and a ballerina!
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12
Brave Girl Eating: A Family's Struggle with Anorexia
Harriet Brown
4.5
In Brave Girl Eating, the chronicle of a family’s struggle with anorexia nervosa, journalist, professor, and author Harriet Brown recounts in mesmerizing and horrifying detail her daughter Kitty’s journey from near-starvation to renewed health. Brave Girl Eating is an intimate, shocking, compelling, and ultimately uplifting look at the ravages of a mental illness that affects more than 18 million Americans.
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13
Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders
Aimee Liu
4.4
If you've ever suffered from an eating disorder-or cared for someone who is anorexic or bulimic-you may think you understand these illnesses. But do you really understand why they occur? Do you know what it takes to fully recover? Do you know how eating disorders affect life after recovery? Now, nearly three decades after she detailed her first battle with anorexia in Solitaire, Aimee Liu presents an emotionally powerful and poignant sequel that digs deep into the causes, cures, and consequences of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Aimee Liu believed she had conquered anorexia in her twenties. Then in her forties, when her life once again began spiraling out of control, she stopped eating. Liu realized the same forces that had caused her original eating disorder were still in play. She also noticed that other women she knew with histories of anorexia and bulimia seemed to share many of her personality traits and habits under stress-even decades after "recovery." Intrigued and concerned, Liu set out to learn who is susceptible to these disorders and why, and what it takes to overcome them once and for all. With GAINING, Liu shatters commonly held beliefs about eating disorders while assembling a puzzle that is as complex and fascinating as human identity itself. Through cutting-edge research and the stories of more than forty interview subjects, readers will discover that the tendency to develop anorexia or bulimia has little to do with culture, class, gender-or weight. Genetics, however, play a key role. So does temperament. So do anxiety, depression, and shame. Clearly, curing eating disorders involves more than good nutrition. Candidly recalling her own struggles, triumphs, and defeats, Aimee explores an array of promising and innovative new treatments, offers vital insights to anyone who has ever had an eating disorder, and shows parents how to help protect their children from ever developing one. Her book is sure to change the way we talk and think about eating disorders for years to come.
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14
Letting Ana Go
Anonymous
4.4
In the tradition of Go Ask Alice and Lucy in the Sky, a harrowing account of anorexia and addiction.
She was a good girl from a good family, with everything she could want or need. But below the surface, she felt like she could never be good enough. Like she could never live up to the expectations that surrounded her. Like she couldn’t do anything to make a change.
But there was one thing she could control completely: how much she ate. The less she ate, the better—stronger—she felt.
But it’s a dangerous game, and there is such a thing as going too far…
Her innermost thoughts and feelings are chronicled in the diary she left behind.
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Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Roxane Gay
4.4
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.
“I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.”
In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
This book will take your breath away with its truth-telling. A searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself. [source]
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The Girls at 17 Swann Street
Yara Zgheib
4.4
*A BookMovement Group Read*
Yara Zgheib’s poetic and poignant debut novel is a haunting portrait of a young woman’s struggle with anorexia on an intimate journey to reclaim her life.
The chocolate went first, then the cheese, the fries, the ice cream. The bread was more difficult, but if she could just lose a little more weight, perhaps she would make the soloists’ list. Perhaps if she were lighter, danced better, tried harder, she would be good enough. Perhaps if she just ran for one more mile, lost just one more pound.
Anna Roux was a professional dancer who followed the man of her dreams from Paris to Missouri. There, alone with her biggest fears – imperfection, failure, loneliness – she spirals down anorexia and depression till she weighs a mere eighty-eight pounds. Forced to seek treatment, she is admitted as a patient at 17 Swann Street, a peach pink house where pale, fragile women with life-threatening eating disorders live. Women like Emm, the veteran; quiet Valerie; Julia, always hungry. Together, they must fight their diseases and face six meals a day.
Every bite causes anxiety. Every flavor induces guilt. And every step Anna takes toward recovery will require strength, endurance, and the support of the girls at 17 Swann Street.
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17
Perfect (Impulse, #2)
Ellen Hopkins
4.4
Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else that they’d rather be. For four high-school seniors, their goals of perfection are just as different as the paths they take to get there. Cara’s parents’ unrealistic expectations have already sent her twin brother Conner spiraling toward suicide. For her, perfect means rejecting their ideals to take a chance on a new kind of love. Kendra covets the perfect face and body—no matter what surgeries and drugs she needs to get there. To score his perfect home run—on the field and off—Sean will sacrifice more than he can ever win back. And Andre realizes that to follow his heart and achieve his perfect performance, he’ll be living a life his ancestors would never understand. Everyone wants to be perfect, but when perfection loses its meaning, how far will you go? What would you give up to be perfect?
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18
Perfect
Natasha Friend
4.4
Depicting with humor and insight the pressure to be outwardly perfect, this novel for ages 10-13 shows how one girl develops compassion for her own and others’ imperfections.
For 13-year-old Isabelle Lee, whose father has recently died, everything's normal on the outside. 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.
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19
Elena Vanishing
Elena Dunkle, Clare B. Dunkle
4.4
Seventeen-year-old Elena is vanishing. Every day means renewed determination, so every day means fewer calories. This is the story of a girl whose armor against anxiety becomes artillery against herself as she battles on both sides of a lose-lose war in a struggle with anorexia.
Told entirely from Elena's perspective over a five-year period and co-written with her mother, award-winning author Clare B. Dunkle, Elena's memoir is a fascinating and intimate look at a deadly disease, and a must read for anyone who knows someone suffering from an eating disorder.
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20
Stick Figure
Lori Gottlieb
4.4
Growing up in Beverly Hills in the 1970s, Lori Gottlieb learned the lessons her culture had to teach her—for example, that “no one could ever like a girl with thunder thighs.” Lori took those lessons seriously, and saw her world fall slowly apart as she developed a fierce reluctance to eat—winding up hospitalized when her “diet” took over her life. Fortunately, she recorded the journey in her diary, and her story is funny, slyly insightful, and surprisingly universal. A Los Angeles Times bestseller, Lori’s story is being made into a motion picture film by Martin Scorsese’s company, Carpo Productions.
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21
Identical
Ellen Hopkins
4.3
Do twins begin in the womb? Or in a better place?
Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family—on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin.
For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites—and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex.
Secrets like the ones the twins are harboring are not meant to be kept—from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it's obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is—who?
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22
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight
Linda Bacon
4.3
Fat isn’t the problem. Dieting is the problem. A society that rejects anyone whose body shape or size doesn’t match an impossible ideal is the problem. A medical establishment that equates “thin” with “healthy” is the problem. The solution?
Health at Every Size.
Tune in to your body’s expert guidance. Find the joy in movement. Eat what you want, when you want, choosing pleasurable foods that help you to feel good. You too can feel great in your body right now—and Health at Every Size will show you how.
Health at Every Size has been scientifically proven to boost health and self-esteem. The program was evaluated in a government-funded academic study, its data published in well-respected scientific journals.
Updated with the latest scientific research and even more powerful messages, Health at Every Size is not a diet book, and after reading it, you will be convinced the best way to win the war against fat is to give up the fight.
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Recommended by Kevin Bass Ms.
Kevin Bass Ms
I love how HAES people try to pretend that they are only promoting weight neutrality and patient-centered care. As if nobody has ever read the actual book Health At Every Size, which explicitly rejects the science on the relationship between body fatness and health. [source]
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23
Girl, Interrupted
Susanna Kaysen
4.3
In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele--Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles--as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary.
Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching documnet that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.
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Recommended by Rae Earl.
Rae Earl
In this book and in her use of language she explores how the brain tumbles [source]
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24
Appetites: Why Women Want
Caroline Knapp
4.3
Caroline Knapp addresses the following question: How does a woman know, and then honour, what it is she wants in a culture bent on shaping, defining and controlling women and their desires? She uses her own experiences as a powerful exploration of this issue.
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Purge: Rehab Diaries
Nicole Johns
4.3
Purge is a beautifully crafted memoir that has a Girl, Interrupted feel. In this raw and engaging account of her months in rehab, Nicole Johns documents her stay in a residential treatment facility for eating disorders. Her prose is lucid and vivid, as she seamlessly switches verb tenses and moves through time. She unearths several important themes: body image and sexuality, sexual assault and relationships, and the struggle to piece together one's path in life. While other books about eating disorders and treatment may sugarcoat the harsh realities of living with and recovering from an eating disorder, Purge does not hold back. The author presents an honest, detailed account of her experience with treatment, avoiding the cliched happily-ever-after ending while still offering hope to those who struggle with eating disorders, as well as anyone who has watched a loved one fight to recover from an eating disorder. Purge sends a message: though the road may be rough, ultimately there is hope."
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26
Skinny
Ibi Kaslik
4.3
Do you ever get hungry? Too hungry to eat?
Holly's older sister, Giselle, is self-destructing. Haunted by her love-deprived relationship with her late father, this once strong role model and medical student is gripped by anorexia. Holly, a track star, struggles to keep her own life in balance while coping with the mental and physical deterioration of her beloved sister. Together, they can feel themselves slipping and are holding on for dear life. This honest look at the special bond between sisters is told from the perspective of both girls, as they alternate narrating each chapter. Gritty and often wryly funny, Skinny explores family relationships, love, pain, and the hunger for acceptance that drives all of us.
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27
Butter
Erin Jade Lange
4.3
A lonely obese boy everyone calls "Butter" is about to make history. He is going to eat himself to death-live on the Internet-and everyone is invited to watch. When he first makes the announcement online to his classmates, Butter expects pity, insults, and possibly sheer indifference. What he gets are morbid cheerleaders rallying around his deadly plan. Yet as their dark encouragement grows, it begins to feel a lot like popularity. And that feels good. But what happens when Butter reaches his suicide deadline? Can he live with the fallout if he doesn't go through with his plans?
With a deft hand, E.J. Lange allows readers to identify with both the bullies and the bullied in this all-consuming look at one teen's battle with himself.
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28
What I Lost
Alexandra Ballard
4.3
What sixteen-year-old Elizabeth has lost so far: forty pounds, four jean sizes, a boyfriend, and her peace of mind. 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?
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Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life
Jenni Schaefer
4.3
Jenni Schaefer and Ed (eating disorder) are no longer on speaking terms, not even in her most difficult moments. In her bestseller,"Life Without Ed", Jenni learned to treat her eating disorder as a relationship, not a condition—enabling her to break up with Ed once and for all.
In "Goodbye Ed, Hello Me" Jenni shows you that being fully recovered is not just about breaking free from destructive behaviors with food and having a healthy relationship with your body; it also means finding joy and peace in your life.
Combining Jenni’s signature personal advice and unfailing encouragement along with valuable exercises you can do as you read, "Goodbye Ed, Hello Me" will give you the prescriptive tools to take the final steps in divorcing your Ed completely.
Foreword by Carolyn Costin, LMFT, M.A., M.Ed.
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Thin
Grace Bowman
4.3
A bright, beautiful teenager, popular with her peers, Grace lived a perfectly ordered, ordinary life. Until one day, aged 18, she went on a diet. That didn’t stop. Then couldn’t stop. That trapped her in ‘a secret world of eating-related happiness and unhappiness’. And saw her weight swiftly drop to below six stone.
A grippingly honest account of life with anorexia nervosa, Thin is Grace’s heartbreaking, shocking and, finally, inspirational story. A memoir that is in part insider’s exposé and in part survivor’s testimony, it explains the struggle for self-discovery, and chronicles the devastating battles waged for control over mind and body.
Breaking secrets, Grace shatters the myths surrounding this widely misunderstood illness, helping those bound within the rules of anorexia to find a way out, and those on the outside to understand more.Thin also has resonance beyond the world of eating disorders. For in daring to tell the truth, Grace reveals her extraordinary story to be a common one, reflected in the shape of many of our lives. She draws on the universal themes of female self-image and self-determination, which have inspired such classics as The Bell Jar and A Room of One’s Own, to shatter the myths surrounding anorexia. And the powerful insights she brings to overcoming addiction make this an invaluable narrative for all those looking to find hope and renewal in the acceptance of change and growth.Thin is the most eloquent account of anorexia yet.
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31
Second Star to the Right
Deborah Hautzig
4.2
Leslie Hiller is a bright, attractive, talented teenager who leads a privileged life in New York City. She is also a perfectionist. When Leslie starts to diet, she finds herself becoming obsessed, getting thinner and thinner, until she is forced to realize that her quest for perfection is killing her. First published in 1981, this groundbreaking novel has been lauded by countless librarians, educators, and teenage readers. This new edition features an afterword by the author in which she discusses her own struggle with the disease, the difficult road toward recovery, and the lasting effects on her life.
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32
Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa
Joan Jacobs Brumberg
4.2
Winner of four major awards, this updated edition of Joan Jacobs Brumberg's Fasting Girls, presents a history of women's food-refusal dating back as far as the sixteenth century. Here is a tableau of female self-denial: medieval martyrs who used starvation to demonstrate religious devotion, "wonders of science" whose families capitalized on their ability to survive on flower petals and air, silent screen stars whose strict "slimming" regimens inspired a generation. Here, too, is a fascinating look at how the cultural ramifications of the Industrial Revolution produced a disorder that continues to render privileged young women helpless. Incisive, compassionate, illuminating, Fasting Girls offers real understanding to victims and their families, clinicians, and all women who are interested in the origins and future of this complex, modern and characteristically female disease.
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33
Skin
Adrienne Maria Vrettos
4.2
I'M TELLING YOU THIS BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T ASK. I'VE GOT IT ALL HERE, GROWING LIKE A TUMOR IN MY THROAT.
I'm telling you because if I don't, I will choke on it. Everybody knows what happened, but nobody asks. And Elvis the EMT doesn't count because when he asked, he didn't even listen to me answer because he was listening to my sister's heart not beat with his stethoscope. I want to tell. It's mine to tell. Even if you didn't ask, you have to hear it.
Fourteen-year-old Donnie's older sister, Karen, has always been the one person in his life on whom he could totally depend. But as Karen slowly slips away in the grip of an eating disorder, Donnie finds himself alone in facing the trauma of his parents' faltering marriage and his new life as an outcast at school.
Donnie makes it his responsibility to cure his sister's illness and fix his parents' issues, letting every part of himself disappear in the process. It is more important -- and somehow easier -- to figure out if today is a day when Karen is eating, or to know if Dad and Mom are sleeping in the same bedroom, than to deal with his own problems. In the end, though, Donnie must decide whether to float through life unnoticed, or to claim his rightful place as a member of his family and of the world. This powerful story from a brilliant new talent introduces a memorable boy in Donnie, who, from his funny and painfully honest point of view, describes a harrowing year that leaves both him and his family forever changed.
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Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating
Christy Harrison
4.2
Reclaim your time, money, health, and happiness from our toxic diet culture with groundbreaking strategies from a registered dietitian, journalist, and host of the "Food Psych" podcast.
68 percent of Americans have dieted at some point in their lives. But upwards of 90% of people who intentionally lose weight gain it back within five years. And as many as 66% of people who embark on weight-loss efforts end up gaining more weight than they lost. If dieting is so clearly ineffective, why are we so obsessed with it?
The culprit is diet culture, a system of beliefs that equates thinness to health and moral virtue, promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, and demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others. It's sexist, racist, and classist, yet this way of thinking about food and bodies is so embedded in the fabric of our society that it can be hard to recognize. It masquerades as health, wellness, and fitness, and for some, it is all-consuming.
In Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison takes on diet culture and the multi-billion-dollar industries that profit from it, exposing all the ways it robs people of their time, money, health, and happiness. It will turn what you think you know about health and wellness upside down, as Harrison explores the history of diet culture, how it's infiltrated the health and wellness world, how to recognize it in all its sneaky forms, and how letting go of efforts to lose weight or eat "perfectly" actually helps to improve people's health -- no matter their size. Drawing on scientific research, personal experience, and stories from patients and colleagues, Anti-Diet provides a radical alternative to diet culture, and helps readers reclaim their bodies, minds, and lives so they can focus on the things that truly matter.
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Recommended by Matt Mcgorry.
Matt Mcgorry
"Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating" by Christy Harrison @chr1styharrison # This must-read book just came out in January, the perfect timing to interrupt so many… https://t.co/fT1K7GM21A [source]
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35
Zoe Letting Go
Nora Price
4.2
A girl's letters to her best friend reveal two lives derailed by anorexia in this haunting debut that's Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls meets The Sixth Sense.
Zoe knows she doesn’t belong in a hospital—so why is she in one? Twin Birch isn’t just any hospital. It’s a strange mansion populated by unnerving staff and glassy-eyed patients. It’s a place for girls with serious problems; skinny, spindly girls who have a penchant for harming themselves.
Zoe isn’t like them. And she can’t figure out why she was sent here. Writing letters to her best friend Elise keep her sane, grounded in the memories of her past—but mired in them, too. Elise never writes back.
Zoe is lost without her, unsure of how to navigate tenuous new friendships and bizarre rules without Elise by her side. But as her letters intertwine with journal entries chronicling her mysterious life at Twin Birch, another narrative unfolds. The hidden story of a complicated friendship; of the choices we make, the truths we tell others, and the lies we tell ourselves. The story of a friendship that has the potential to both save—and damage beyond repair. And Zoe finds she must confront the truth about her past once and for all, before she can finally let go.
Nora Price’s debut novel is a heart-wrenching meditation on the bonds of friendship with a gripping psychological twist.
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36
How I Live Now
Meg Rosoff
4.2
"Every war has turning points and every person too."
Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she's never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy.
As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated. Despite the war, it's a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy's uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way.
A riveting and astonishing story.
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37
The Intuitive Eating Workbook: Ten Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food
Evelyn Tribole
4.2
Do you use food to comfort yourself during stressful times? The Intuitive Eating Workbook offers a comprehensive, evidence-based program to help you develop a healthy relationship with food, pay attention to cues of hunger and satisfaction, and cultivate a profound connection with your mind and body.
Have you tried fad diet after fad diet, only to gain weight back? Maybe you’ve tried the protein diet only to move on to vegetables only? Raw almonds and coconut water every forty-five minutes instead of big meals? Or perhaps you’ve tried counting calories, but the numbers on the scale still don’t add up. If you are ready to throw in your hat and give up on dieting for good, take heart. You can enjoy food again—you just need to pay attention to your body’s natural hunger cues. Based on the authors’ best-selling book, Intuitive Eating, this workbook can show you how.
The Intuitive Eating Workbook offers a new way of looking at food and mealtime by showing you how to recognize your body’s natural hunger signals. Structured around the ten principles of intuitive eating, the mindful approach in this workbook encourages you to abandon unhealthy weight control behaviors, develop positive body image, and—most importantly—stop feeling distressed around food!
You were born with all the wisdom you need for eating intuitively. This book will help you reconnect with that wisdom and ultimately change your life—one meal at a time.
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38
Hunger (Riders of the Apocalypse, #1)
Jackie Morse Kessler
4.2
“Thou art the Black Rider. Go thee out unto the world.”
Lisabeth Lewis has a black steed, a set of scales, and a new job: she’s been appointed Famine. How will an anorexic seventeen-year-old girl from the suburbs fare as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Traveling the world on her steed gives Lisa freedom from her troubles at home: her constant battle with hunger, and her struggle to hide it from the people who care about her. But being Famine forces her to go places where hunger is a painful part of everyday life, and to face the horrifying effects of her phenomenal power. Can Lisa find a way to harness that power — and the courage to battle her own inner demons?
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39
An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia
Emma Woolf
4.2
A true story of falling in love and overcoming anorexia. At the age of 32, after ten years of hiding from the truth, Emma Woolf finally decided it was time to face the biggest challenge of her life. Addicted to hunger, exercise and control, she was juggling a full-blown eating disorder with a successful career, functioning on an apple a day. Having met the man of her dreams (and wanting a future and a baby together), she embarked on the hardest struggle of all: to beat anorexia. It was time to start eating again, to regain her fertility and her curves, to throw out the size-zero clothes and face her food fears. And as if that wasn't enough pressure, Emma also took the decision to write about her progress in a weekly column for The Times. Honest, hard-hitting and yet romantic, An Apple a Day is a manifesto for the modern generation to stop starving and start living; a compelling and life affirming true story of love and recovery.
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40
Brain over Binge: Why I Was Bulimic, Why Conventional Therapy Didn't Work, and How I Recovered for Good
Kathryn Hansen, Lydia Wente, et al
4.2
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41
Never Binge Again(tm): Reprogram Yourself to Think Like a Permanently Thin Person. Stop Overeating and Binge Eating and Stick to the Food Plan of Your Choice!
If you struggle with binge eating, emotional eating, stress eating, or if you repeatedly manage to lose weight only to gain it all back, you may be approaching things with the wrong mindset.
Most contemporary thought on overeating and bingeing focuses on healing and self-love. But people who've overcome food and weight issues often report it was more like capturing and caging a rabid dog than learning to love their inner child...
Open the cage even an inch-or show that dog an ounce of fear-and it'll quickly burst out to shred your healthy eating plans, undoing all your progress in a heartbeat.
From his perspective as a formerly food-obsessed psychologist-and previous consultant to major food manufacturers-Dr. Livingston shares specific techniques for isolating and permanently dis-empowering your "fat thinking self." He reveals much of his own personal journey in the process.
If despite your best intentions you find yourself in one or more of the following situations then this book is for you... You've tried diet after diet with no permanent success... You constantly think about food and/or your weight... You feel driven to eat when you're not hungry (emotional overeating)... You sometimes feel you can't stop eating even though you're full... You sometimes feel guilty or ashamed of what you've eaten... You behave differently with food in private than you do when you're with other people... You feel the need to fast and/or severely restrict your food to "make up" for serious bouts of overeating... Never Binge Again can help you: Dramatically improve your ability to stick to ANY healthy food plan so you can achieve your weight loss and/or fitness goals... Quickly recover from mistakes without self judgement or unnecessary guilt... Free yourself from the prison of food obsession so you can enjoy a satisfying, delicious, and healthy diet for the rest of your life!
"What the Hades is this? It can't be this simple. But I'm closer to my goal weight than I've been in decades!" - Peter Borromeo
"A powerful, thought provoking, and very un-ladylike approach to the problem of bingeing!" - Stephanie King
"A unique and brilliant way to leverage will power; passionate, convincing, defiant and inspiring - all at the same time" - Richard Guy
"Never Binge Again squelched that awful voice in the back of my mind which says 'you'll backslide eventually, no matter what.' Thanks to this book failure is no longer an option!" - Warren Start
"I'm still reeling with the revelation I have the ability to Never Binge Again, just like my ability to never rob a bank, never push and old lady into traffic, or never jump off of a perfectly good cliff! [...] This book is THE TOOL I need to conquer ever attempting to satisfy emotional feelings with carbo-laden calories again!" - Traci Rickards
"If you follow this simple program, you CAN see results without the 'normal' struggle. No eating foods you don't like. No fancy rules, schedules or psychotic workouts. It puts you fully in charge of your eating...and it's sustainable." - Keith Duncan CPT "(Certified Personal Trainer)"
"Refreshingly unlike any other nutrition/healthy-eating/wellbeing title I've ever read...and I've read quite a few! The total absence of charts, food diaries, calorie counters and so on is fabulous." - Celia Almeida
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42
Clean
Amy Reed
4.2
You’re probably wondering how I ended up here. I’m still wondering the same thing.
Olivia, Kelly, Christopher, Jason, and Eva have one thing in common: They’re addicts. Addicts who have hit rock bottom and been stuck together in rehab to face their problems, face sobriety, and face themselves. None of them wants to be there. None of them wants to confront the truths about their pasts. And they certainly don’t want to share their darkest secrets and most desperate fears with a room of strangers. But they’ll all have to deal with themselves—and one another—if they want to learn how to live. Because when you get that high, there’s nowhere to go but down, down, down.
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43
Heavy: An American Memoir
Kiese Laymon
4.2
In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.
Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been.
In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood—and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
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44
Heartstopper: Volume Three (Heartstopper, #3)
Alice Oseman
4.1
In this volume we’ll see the Heartstopper gang go on a school trip to Paris! Not only are Nick and Charlie navigating a new city, but also telling more people about their relationship AND learning more about the challenges each other are facing in private…
Meanwhile Tao and Elle will face their feelings for each other, Tara and Darcy share more about their relationship origin story, and the teachers supervising the trip seem… rather close…?
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45
Life-Size
Jenefer Shute
4.1
Both a cautionary tale and a call to arms for women whose lives are diminished by the tyranny of thinness, this harrowing novel about a young woman's anguished battle with anorexia is by turns crackling, acrid, and darkly comic. Life-Size shoots straight for the heart of our country's obsession with food and image.
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46
I hope this finds you well
joanna michael
4.1
I hope this finds you well is a collection of poetry derived from eating disorders, addiction, heartbreak and emotional healing. The poems are numbered in random order as a metaphor for the confusing and bewildering environment of mental illness and addiction. It is also intentional to symbolize the way healing is not linear; we often start on step one, jump to step sixteen, regress to step six and then wake up the next day at step 273. An hour later we are back to step 30. The author compels the reader to understand you are where you are supposed to be; there is no timeline.
Encompassing the metaphor of a vase, it is divided into five sections: the molding, the painting, the shattering, the rebuilding and the revealing. Throughout the journey, it slowly becomes apparent that the reader is the vase.
Lastly, I hope this finds you well is a community of understanding we are not what broke us; we are what we became from it.
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47
Believarexic
J.J. Johnson
4.1
Fifteen-year-old Jennifer has to force her family to admit she needs help for her eating disorder. But when her parents sign her into the Samuel Tuke Center, she knows it’s a terrible mistake. The facility’s locked doors, cynical nurses, and punitive rules are a far cry from the peaceful, supportive environment she’d imagined.
In order to be discharged, Jennifer must make her way through the strict treatment program—as well as harrowing accusations, confusing half-truths, and startling insights. She is forced to examine her relationships, both inside and outside the hospital. She must relearn who to trust, and decide for herself what “healthy” really means.
Punctuated by dark humor, gritty realism, and profound moments of self-discovery, Believarexic is a stereotype-defying exploration of belief and human connection.
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48
The Art of Starving
Sam J. Miller
4.1
More Happy Than Not meets Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future in this gritty, contemporary YA debut about a bullied gay teen boy with an eating disorder who believes he’s developed super powers via starvation.
Matt hasn’t eaten in days.
His stomach stabs and twists inside, pleading for a meal. But Matt won’t give in. The hunger clears his mind, keeps him sharp—and he needs to be as sharp as possible if he’s going to find out just how Tariq and his band of high school bullies drove his sister, Maya, away.
Matt’s hardworking mom keeps the kitchen crammed with food, but Matt can resist the siren call of casseroles and cookies because he has discovered something: the less he eats the more he seems to have . . . powers. The ability to see things he shouldn’t be able to see. The knack of tuning in to thoughts right out of people’s heads. Maybe even the authority to bend time and space.
So what is lunch, really, compared to the secrets of the universe?
Matt decides to infiltrate Tariq’s life, then use his powers to uncover what happened to Maya. All he needs to do is keep the hunger and longing at bay. No problem. But Matt doesn’t realize there are many kinds of hunger… and he isn’t in control of all of them.
A darkly funny, moving story of body image, addiction, friendship, and love, Sam J. Miller’s debut novel will resonate with any reader who’s ever craved the power that comes with self-acceptance.
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49
Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl
Stacy Pershall
4.1
"An utterly unique journey down some of the mind's more mysterious byways . . . ranges from the shocking to the simply lovely." —Marya Hornbacher
Stacy Pershall grew up depressed and too smart for her own good, a deeply strange girl in Prairie Grove, Arkansas (population 1,000), where the prevailing wisdom was that Jesus healed all. From her days as a thirteen-year-old Jesus freak, through a battle with anorexia and bulimia, her first manic episode at eighteen, and the eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, this spirited and at times mordantly funny memoir chronicles Pershall's journey through hell-several breakdowns and suicide attempts—and her struggle with the mental health care system.
After her 2001 suicide attempt, broadcast live on a Webcam, Pershall realized the need to heal her mind and body. She found a revolutionary cure (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and a new mood-stabilizing medication. She also met a tattoo artist and discovered the healing power of body modification. By giving over her skin and enduring the physical pain, she learned about the true nature of trust.
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50
When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder: Practical Strategies to Help Your Teen Recover from Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge Eating
Lauren Muhlheim PsyD
4.1
If your teen has an eating disorder—such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating—you may feel helpless, worried, or uncertain about how you can best support them. That’s why you need real, proven-effective strategies you can use right away. Whether used in conjunction with treatment or on its own, this book offers an evidence-based approach you can use now to help your teen make healthy choices and stay well in body and mind.
When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder will empower you to help your teen using a unique, family-based treatment (FBT) approach. With this guide, you’ll learn to respectfully and lovingly oversee your teen’s nutritional rehabilitation, which includes helping to normalize eating behaviors, managing meals, expanding food flexibility, teaching independent and intuitive eating habits, and using coping strategies and recovery skills to prevent relapse.
In addition to helping parents and caregivers, this book is a wonderful resource for mental health professionals, teachers, counselors, and coaches who work with parents of and teens with eating disorders. It clearly outlines the principles of FBT and the process of involving parents collaboratively in treatment.
As a parent, feeding your child is a fundamental act of love—it has been from the start! However, when a child is affected by an eating disorder, parents often lose confidence in performing this basic task. This compassionate guide will help you gain the confidence needed to nurture your teen and help them heal.
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51
The Secret Language of Eating Disorders: How You Can Understand and Work to Cure Anorexia and Bulimia
Peggy Claude-Pierre
4.1
Self-Help/Women's Health
Acclaim for Peggy Claude-Pierre's The Secret Language of Eating Disorders
"Peggy Claude-Pierre has gone beyond the surface of eating disorders to discover their true causes and then present a valid and healing path. In this extremely constructive book, she offers incredible insights into the mind of the sufferer and the myths of eating disorders." --Keith J. Karren, Ph.D., Department Chair, Health Sciences, Brigham Young University
"Peggy Claude-Pierre is a warrior--ferocious and relentless--whose work has rescued a decade of sufferers." --Edward Feller, M.D., F.A.C.P., Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Brown University School of Medicine
"Peggy Claude-Pierre has created a paradigm shift in the way we view and treat anorexia. Peggy has shifted the focus of care from that of controlling the symptoms of disordered eating to healing the negativity that would otherwise plague the individual for the rest of his or her life. I have developed the utmost respect for her, for I realize that she has translated the secret language of anorexia. Now it is up to us to use the knowledge she has revealed." --Daniel J. Smith, M.D.
"Peggy Claude-Pierre's work begins where attachment to the limiting obstacles of theory end. She has brought back from the dead many young lives the world deemed hopeless. . . . There are many who possess the title of 'doctor' who have never come close to her incredible example of the selfless healer." --Craig T. Pratt, M.D., Chief, Division of Addiction Medicine, Grant-Riverside Methodist Hospital
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52
Girls Under Pressure (Girls, #2)
Jacqueline Wilson
4.1
Magda is tall and glamorous, Nadine is willowy and 'gothic' and Ellie, well, Ellie is just plain normal. The three girls have been best friends 'forever' but now Ellie is convinced she's fat; Nadine wants to be a model; and Magda worries that her appearance is giving guys the wrong idea... They all long to change their looks and they're all under pressure!
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53
Going Hungry: Writers on Desire, Self-Denial, and Overcoming Anorexia
Kate M. Taylor
4.1
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. 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.
www.anchorbooks.com www.goinghungry.com
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54
8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder Workbook
Carolyn Costin and Gwen Schubert Grabb
4.1
8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder was lauded as a "brave and hopeful book" as well as "remarkably readable." Now, the authors have returned with a companion workbook—offering all new assignments, strategies, and personal reflections to help those who suffer from an eating disorder heal their relationship to food and their bodies.
Clients of Costin and Grabb consistently tell them that knowing they are both recovered is one of the most helpful aspects of their treatment. With this experience as a foundation, the authors bring together years of clinical expertise and invaluable personal testimony, from themselves and others, to the strategies in this book. Readers will get a glimpse of what it's like to be in therapy with either Carolyn or Gwen.
Filled with tried and true practical exercises, goal sheets, food journal forms, clinical anecdotes and stories, readers are guided in exploring their thoughts, feelings, and coping strategies while being encouraged to choose how they want to approach the material.
This book is an important resource to anyone living with destructive or self-defeating eating behaviors.
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55
45 Pounds (More or Less)
Kelly Barso
4.1
Here are the numbers of Ann Galardi’s life:
She is 16. And a size 17. Her perfect mother is a size 6. Her Aunt Jackie is getting married in 10 weeks, and wants Ann to be her bridesmaid. So Ann makes up her mind: Time to lose 45 pounds (more or less) in 2 1/2 months.
Welcome to the world of infomercial diet plans, wedding dance lessons, embarrassing run-ins with the cutest guy Ann’s ever seen—-and some surprises about her NOT-so-perfect mother.
And there’s one more thing. It’s all about feeling comfortable in your own skin-—no matter how you add it up!
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56
Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders
Jennifer L. Gaudiani
4.1
Patients with eating disorders frequently feel that they aren't "sick enough" to merit treatment, despite medical problems that are both measurable and unmeasurable. They may struggle to accept rest, nutrition, and a team to help them move towards recovery. Sick Enough offers patients, their families, and clinicians a comprehensive, accessible review of the medical issues that arise from eating disorders by bringing relatable case presentations and a scientifically sound, engaging style to the topic. Using metaphor and patient-centered language, Dr. Gaudiani aims to improve medical diagnosis and treatment, motivate recovery, and validate the lived experiences of individuals of all body shapes and sizes, while firmly rejecting dieting culture.
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57
Good Enough
Jen Petro-Roy
4.1
Before she had an eating disorder, twelve-year-old Riley was many things: an aspiring artist, a runner, a sister, and a friend.
But now, from inside the inpatient treatment center where she's receiving treatment for anorexia, it's easy to forget all of that. Especially since under the influence of her eating disorder, Riley alienated her friends, abandoned her art, turned running into something harmful, and destroyed her family's trust.
If Riley wants her life back, she has to recover.
Part of her wants to get better. As she goes to therapy, makes friends in the hospital, and starts to draw again, things begin to look up.
But when her roommate starts to break the rules, triggering Riley's old behaviors and blackmailing her into silence, Riley realizes that recovery will be even harder than she thought. She starts to think that even if she does "recover," there's no way she'll stay recovered once she leaves the hospital and is faced with her dieting mom, the school bully, and her gymnastics-star sister.
Written by an eating disorder survivor, this is a realistic depiction of inpatient eating disorder treatment, and a moving story about a girl who has to fight herself to survive.
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58
Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
Geneen Roth
4.1
Roth began exploring emotional eating in her bestseller When Food Is Love. Now, two decades later, here is her masterwork: WOMEN FOOD AND GOD.
The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. No matter how sophisticated or wise or enlightened you believe you are, how you eat tells all. The world is on your plate. When you begin to understand what prompts you to use food as a way to numb or distract yourself, the process takes you deeper into realms of spirit and to the bright center of your own life. Rather than getting rid of or instantly changing your conflicted relationship with food, Women Food and God is about welcoming what is already here, and contacting the part of yourself that is already whole—divinity itself.
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59
She's Come Undone
Wally Lamb
4.1
In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years.
Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.
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60
Decoding Anorexia: How Breakthroughs in Science Offer Hope for Eating Disorders
Carrie Arnold, Cynthia M. Bulik
4.1
Decoding Anorexia is the first and only book to explain anorexia nervosa from a biological point of view. Its clear, user-friendly descriptions of the genetics and neuroscience behind the disorder is paired with first person descriptions and personal narratives of what biological differences mean to sufferers. Author Carrie Arnold, a trained scientist, science writer, and past sufferer of anorexia, speaks with clinicians, researchers, parents, other family members, and sufferers about the factors that make one vulnerable to anorexia, the neurochemistry behind the call of starvation, and why it's so hard to leave anorexia behind. She also addresses: - How environment is still important and influences behaviors - The characteristics of people at high risk for developing anorexia nervosa - Why anorexics find starvation "rewarding" - Why denial is such a salient feature, and how sufferers can overcome it Carrie also includes interviews with key figures in the field who explain their work and how it contributes to our understanding of anorexia. Long thought to be a psychosocial disease of fickle teens, this book alters the way anorexia is understood and treated and gives patients, their doctors, and their family members hope.
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61
Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
Mary Pipher, Ruth Ross
4.1
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62
The Golden Cage: The Enigma of Anorexia Nervosa
Hilde Bruch M.D., Catherine Steiner-Adair Ed.D.
4.1
First published more than twenty years ago, with almost 150,000 copies sold, The Golden Cage is still the classic book on anorexia nervosa, for patients, parents, mental health trainees, and senior therapists alike. Writing in direct, jargon-free style, often quoting her patients' descriptions of their own experience of illness and recovery, Bruch describes the relentless pursuit of thinness and the search for superiority in self-denial that characterizes anorexia nervosa. She emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis and offers guidance on danger signs. Little-known when this groundbreaking book was first published, eating disorders have become all too familiar. Sympathetic and astute, The Golden Cage now speaks to a new generation.
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63
Befriending Your Body: A Self-Compassionate Approach to Freeing Yourself from Disordered Eating
Ann Saffi Biasetti
4.1
A step-by-step holistic approach to recovering fully from disordered eating, using self-compassion and embodiment practices to reduce symptoms, increase body awareness and acceptance, reconnect to others, and step back into an integrated life.
Those who struggle with disordered eating often find themselves in an unrelenting cycle of harsh self-judgment, painful emotions, and harmful behaviors. Seeing the body as an adversary, these patterns can lead many people to become withdrawn or isolated. Ann Saffi Biasetti’s powerful holistic approach to liberating people from disordered eating focuses on growing self-compassion and embodiment. This insight, informed by yoga and mindfulness meditation, views the body not just as something to be healed or restored but as a source of great wisdom and knowledge.
Dr. Biasetti offers yoga-based movement, body-awareness practices, meditations, and journaling exercises to help release long-held habits of self-criticism and perfectionism. Her step-by-step program will rebuild self-compassion, self-care, body awareness, acceptance, and connection to the self and to others
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64
The Eating Disorder Trap: A Guide for Clinicians and Loved Ones
RDN CEDRD-S Robyn L. Goldberg
4.1
Written by an expert with over twenty years of experience in the field of eating disorders, this book will give you the facts in a friendly and easy to read format. Get to know what you are dealing with and how it is taking a toll on your body and quality of life. Get rid of the myths "diet culture" has had you believe. Find out where to go and who to turn to for expert and compassionate care, maximizing your potential for recovery.
On the other hand, you might be a treatment provider looking for sound knowledge regarding eating disorder screening tools, lab tests, online resources, and how to put together the most effective treatment team. If that is the case, then this book is for you.
The journey with an eating disorder can seem like a dark maze with no way out. Allow the knowledge in this book to light the path. Recovery is possible with the right information, guidance, and treatment intervention.
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65
Tyranny
Lesley Fairfield
4.1
In Tyranny, brisk, spare text and illustrations that deal head-on with anorexia propel the reader along on Anna’s journey as she falls prey to the eating disorder, personified as her tormentor, Tyranny.
The novel starts with a single question: “How did I get here?” The answer lies in the pages that follow, and it’s far from simple. Pressured by media, friends, the workplace, personal relationships, and fashion trends, Anna descends into a seemingly unending cycle of misery. And whenever she tries to climb out of the abyss, her own personal demon, Tyranny, is there to push her back in. The contest seems uneven, and it might be except for one thing: Anna’s strength of character has given rise to her deadly enemy. Ironically, it is that same strength of character that has the ultimate power to save her from the ravages of Tyranny.
Brilliantly and realistically presented, Tyranny is a must-read for anyone looking for a better understanding of eating disorders and for everyone looking for a compelling page-turner that is truly a story of triumph and hope.
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66
A Trick of the Light
Lois Metzger
4.1
Telling a story of a rarely recognized segment of eating disorder sufferers—young men—A Trick of the Light by Lois Metzger is a book for fans of the complex characters and emotional truths in Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls and Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why.
Mike Welles had everything under control. But that was before. Now things are rough at home, and they're getting confusing at school. He's losing his sense of direction, and he feels like he's a mess. Then there's a voice in his head. A friend, who's trying to help him get control again. More than that—the voice can guide him to become faster and stronger than he was before, to rid his life of everything that's holding him back. To figure out who he is again. If only Mike will listen.
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67
Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body
Courtney E. Martin
4.1
"Why does every one of my friends have an eating disorder, or, at the very least, a screwed-up approach to food and fitness?" writes journalist Courtney E. Martin. The new world culture of eating disorders and food and body issues affects virtually all -- not just a rare few -- of today's young women. They are your sisters, friends, and colleagues -- a generation told that they could "be anything," who instead heard that they had to "be everything." Driven by a relentless quest for perfection, they are on the verge of a breakdown, exhausted from overexercising, binging, purging, and depriving themselves to attain an unhealthy ideal.An emerging new talent, Courtney E. Martin is the voice of a young generation so obsessed with being thin that their consciousness is always focused inward, to the detriment of their careers and relationships. Health and wellness, joy and love have come to seem ancillary compared to the desire for a perfect body. Even though eating disorders first became generally known about twenty-five years ago, they have burgeoned, worsened, become more difficult to treat and more fatal (50 percent of anorexics who do not respond to treatment die within ten years). Consider these statistics:
Ten million Americans suffer from eating disorders. Seventy million people worldwide suffer from eating disorders. More than half of American women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five would pre fer to be run over by a truck or die young than be fat. More than two-thirds would rather be mean or stupid. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychological disease.
In "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters," Martin offers original research from the front lines of the eating disorders battlefield. Drawn from more than a hundred interviews with sufferers, psychologists, nutritionists, sociocultural experts, and others, her expose reveals a new generation of "perfect girls" who are obsessive-compulsive, overachieving, and self-sacrificing in multiple -- and often dangerous -- new ways. Young women are "told over and over again," Martin notes, "that we can be anything. But in those affirmations, assurances, and assertions was a concealed pressure, an unintended message: You are special. You are worth something. But you need to be perfect to live up to that specialness."
With its vivid and often heartbreaking personal stories, "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters" has the power both to shock and to educate. It is a true call to action and cannot be missed.
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68
Not Otherwise Specified
Hannah Moskowit
4.1
Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.
Everywhere she turns, someone feels she's too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself?
The latest powerful, original novel from Hannah Moskowitz is the story about living in and outside communities and stereotypes, and defining your own identity.
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69
Pointe
Brandy Colbert
4.1
Theo is better now.
She's eating again, dating guys who are almost appropriate, and well on her way to becoming an elite ballet dancer. But when her oldest friend, Donovan, returns home after spending four long years with his kidnapper, Theo starts reliving memories about his abduction—and his abductor.
Donovan isn't talking about what happened, and even though Theo knows she didn't do anything wrong, telling the truth would put everything she's been living for at risk. But keeping quiet might be worse.
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70
Goodbye, Paper Doll
Anne Snyder
4.1
(Excript from back cover) Anorexia Nervosa... That was the doctor's diagnosis. But seventeen-year-old Rosemary Norton knew better. She wasn't sick; the doctor and her parents were only worryworts. Jason, who said he loved her, was just like the rest of the boys; all he cared about was her looks. And Trudy and her other so-called friends at school were simply jealous, because Rosemary alone had the willpower to diet and exercise to the limit.
Rosemary had never looked or felt better. she was paper-thin and brimming with energy. And she was smart- smart enough to get around the doctor's threats to put her in the hospital; to trick her parents into thinking she was eating; to beat the enemies who would like to see her fat. Rosemary thought she was smart enough to beat them all...but she didn't know she was on the brink of destroying herself.
Goodbye, Paper Doll
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71
Madness: A Bipolar Life
Marya Hornbacher
4.1
An astonishing dispatch from inside the belly of bipolar disorder, reflecting major new insights
When Marya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet have the piece of shattering knowledge that would finally make sense of the chaos of her life. At age twenty-four, Hornbacher was diagnosed with Type I rapid-cycle bipolar, the most severe form of bipolar disorder.
In Madness, in her trademark wry and utterly self-revealing voice, Hornbacher tells her new story. Through scenes of astonishing visceral and emotional power, she takes us inside her own desperate attempts to counteract violently careening mood swings by self-starvation, substance abuse, numbing sex, and self-mutilation. How Hornbacher fights her way up from a madness that all but destroys her, and what it is like to live in a difficult and sometimes beautiful life and marriage -- where bipolar always beckons -- is at the center of this brave and heart-stopping memoir.
Madness delivers the revelation that Hornbacher is not alone: millions of people in America today are struggling with a variety of disorders that may disguise their bipolar disease. And Hornbacher's fiercely self-aware portrait of her own bipolar as early as age four will powerfully change, too, the current debate on whether bipolar in children actually exists.
Ten years after Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, this storm of a memoir will revolutionize our understanding of bipolar disorder.
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72
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters
Joan Ryan
4.1
From starvation diets and debilitating injuries to the brutal tactics of tyrannical gymnastics guru Bela Karolyi, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes portrays the horrors endured by girls at the hands of their coaches and sometimes their own families. An acclaimed expose that has already helped reform Olympic sports—now updated to reflect the latest developments in women's gymnastics and figure skating—it continues to plead for sanity, safety, and an end to our national obsession: winning at any cost.
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73
Eating Disorders Anonymous: The Story of How We Recovered from Our Eating Disorders
Eating Disorders Anonymous (EDA)
4.1
Eating Disorders Anonymous: The Story of How We Recovered from Our Eating Disorders presents the accumulated experience, strength, and hope of many who have followed a Twelve-Step approach to recover from their eating disorders. Eating Disorders Anonymous (EDA), founded by sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), have produced a work that emulates the “Big Book” in style and substance. EDA respects the pioneering work of AA while expanding its Twelve-Step message of hope to include those who are religious or seek a spiritual solution, and for those who are not and may be more comfortable substituting “higher purpose” for the traditional “Higher Power.” Further, the EDA approach embraces the development and maintenance of balance and perspective, rather than abstinence, as the goal of recovery.
Initial chapters provide clear directions on how to establish a foothold in recovery by offering one of the founder’s story of hope, and collective voices tell why EDA is suitable for readers with any type of problem eating, including: anorexia nervosa, bulimia, binge eating, emotional eating, and orthorexia. The text then explains how to use the Twelve Steps to develop a durable and resilient way of thinking and acting that is free of eating disordered thoughts and behaviors, including how to pay it forward so that others might have hope of recovery.
In the second half of the text, individual contributors share their experiences, describing what it was like to have an eating disorder, what happened that enabled them to make a start in recovery, and what it is like to be in recovery. Like the “Big Book,” these stories are in three sections: Pioneers of EDA, They Stopped in Time, and They Lost Nearly All.
Readers using the Twelve Steps to recover from other issues will find the process consistent and reinforcing of their experiences, yet the EDA approach offers novel ideas and specific guidance for those struggling with food, weight and body image issues. Letters of support from three, highly-regarded medical professionals and two, well-known recovery advocates offer reassurance that EDA’s approach is consistent with that supported by medical research and standards in the field of eating disorders treatment.
Intended as standard reading for members who participate in EDA groups throughout the world, this book is accessible and appropriate for anyone who wants to recover from an eating disorder or from issues related to food, weight, and body image.
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74
Fat Is a Feminist Issue
Susie Orbach
4.1
When it was first published, Fat Is A Feminist Issue became an instant classic and it is as relevant today as it was then. Reflecting on our increasingly diet and body-obsessed society, Susie Orbach's new introduction explains how generations of women and girls are growing up absorbing the eating anxieties around them. In an age where women want to be sexy, nurturing, domestic goddesses, confident at work, and feminine too, the twenty-first-century woman is poorly armed for survival. Never before has the Fat Is A Feminist Issue revolution been more in need of revival.
Exploring our love/hate relationship with food, Susie Orbach describes how fat is about so much more than food. It is a response to our social situation; the way we are seen by others and ourselves. Too often food is a source of anguish, as are our bodies. But Fat Is A Feminist Issue discusses how we can turn food into a friend and find ways to accept ourselves for who and how we are. Following the step-by-step guide, and you too can put an end to food anxieties and dieting.
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Recommended by Louise Foxcroft.
Louise Foxcroft
This book isn’t entirely to do with the history of medicine, but it is relevant. I think it is still as important today as when it first came out in 1978. Orbach exposes our obsession with our bodies and the narcissistic nature of society. You could say that worrying and obsessing about our size and shape, how it might be improved, what diet we should go on and what surgery we should have for it, is just another version of our obsession with ourselves. [source]
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75
Massive
Julia Bell, Andrew Biscomb
4.1
"I'm fat," I hear myself saying. 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?
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76
Please Don't Take My Sisters: The heartbreaking true story of a little boy terrified of losing the only family he has left (A Maggie Hartley Foster Carer Story)
Maggie Hartley
4.1
Three-year-old Lexie, five-year-old Amelie and thirteen-year-old Leo come to Maggie after Leo confesses to a teacher that his mother's addiction problems and her latest violent relationship has left him as the sole carer to his younger sisters.
Maggie welcomes the three children into her home, and is touched by the gentle care Leo shows to the two little girls. It is clear that Lexie and Amelie adore their big brother, and rely on him for comfort and reassurance. But Leo has experienced the neglect and abuse of his mother and her partner for far longer than his sisters, and is struggling with an eating disorder and showing signs of OCD.
When Social Services begin to look at adoptive families for the children, Maggie is horrified when they suggest that the two angelic little girls will have a much better chance of being adopted without their damaged older brother. Knowing the impact that losing his sisters forever will have on vulnerable Leo, they face the ultimate dilemma. Should the children stay together and dash the hope of them ever having a forever family? Or do they sacrifice the close bond between the siblings to give the girls a chance to be adopted?
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77
Handle with Care
Jodi Picoult
4.1
When Willow is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, her parents are devastated--she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. Every expectant parent will tell you that they don't want a perfect baby, just a healthy one. Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe would have asked for a healthy baby, too, if they'd been given the choice. Instead, their lives are made up of sleepless nights, mounting bills, the pitying stares of "luckier" parents, and maybe worst of all, the what-ifs. What if their child had been born healthy? But it's all worth it because Willow is, funny as it seems, perfect. She's smart as a whip, on her way to being as pretty as her mother, kind, brave, and for a five-year-old an unexpectedly deep source of wisdom. Willow is Willow, in sickness and in health.
Everything changes, though, after a series of events forces Charlotte and her husband to confront the most serious what-ifs of all. What if Charlotte had known earlier of Willow's illness? What if things could have been different? What if their beloved Willow had never been born? To do Willow justice, Charlotte must ask herself these questions and one more. What constitutes a valuable life?
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78
Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition, and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves
Crystal Renn, Marjorie Ingall
4.0
An inspiring and cautionary tale for women of all ages, Hungry is an uplifting memoir with a universal message about body image, beauty and self-confidence.
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79
Stop Smoking Now
Allen Carr
4.0
Allen Carr s Easyway is the most successful stop-smoking method of all time. It has helped millions of smokers from all over the world quit instantly, easily, painlessly and permanently. Stop Smoking Now is the new, cutting-edge presentation of the method. Updated and set out in a clear, easy-to-read format, this book makes it simpler than ever before to get free.Allen Carr s Easyway does not rely on willpower as it removes your desire to smoke. It eliminates the fears that keep you hooked and you won t miss cigarettes. It works both for heavy and casual smokers and regardless of how long you ve been smoking. There are no gimmicks or scare tactics, you won t put on weight, and you can even smoke when you read. Allen Carr s books have sold over 15 million copies to date in more than 40 different languages and Stop Smoking Now is the newest presentation of the Easyway message, updated for the 21st century but still centred on the world s most effective stop-smoking programme the tried and tested Easyway method, 'the one that works'. The Allen Carr method has been presented here in a lively, informative and streamlined way. This book brings the original Easyway concept bang up do date, incorporating lessons that have been learned from those who teach in the global network of Allen Carr clinics. No one has more experience of helping smokers quit."
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80
More Than You Can Chew
Marnelle Tokio
4.0
Marty Black has retreated from a difficult family situation into the area she can best control, her own appetites. She may not be able to control her parents’ behavior, but she can decide what she will and will not eat. Eventually, she stops eating altogether. Marty is close to death when she finally asks for help and finds herself in a psychiatric institution. But recognizing her need for help is only the first tenuous step on a long road to recovery.
Marty’s ability to find a way to live, despite the powerful lure of anorexia, is the core of this fine, insightful novel.
Marnelle Tokio’s semi autobiographical story will resonate with every teenager who faces issues of family, body image, and self-confidence.
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81
The F*ck It Diet: Stop Dieting and Start Taking Up Space
Caroline Dooner
4.0
The anti-diet bible that calls time’s up to poisonous beliefs about food, weight and worth.
DIETING DOESN’T WORK
Not long term. In fact, our bodies are hardwired against it. But each time our diets fail, instead of considering that maybe our ridiculously low-carb diet is the problem, we wonder what’s wrong with us.
But it’s time we called a spade a spade: Constantly trying to eat the smallest amount possible is a miserable way to live, and it isn’t even working. So f*ck it.
Caroline Dooner tackles the inherent flaws of dieting and diet culture, and offers readers a simple path to healing their physical, emotional, and mental relationship with food. What’s the secret anti-diet? Eat. Whatever you want. Trust that your body knows what it is doing. Oh, and don’t forget to rest, breathe, and be kind to yourself.
Irreverent and empowering, The F*ck It Diet is call to arms for anyone who feels guilt or pain over food, weight, or their body. It’s time to give up the shame and start thriving. Welcome to the F*ck It Diet. Let’s Eat.
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82
Slim to None: A Journey Through the Wasteland of Anorexia Treatment
Jennifer Hendricks
4.0
"[Jennifer Hendricks] ... fought to be cured of anorexia nervosa. But as the diary she kept shows, a widespread lack of understanding about eating disorders and scattergun treatment programs make the battle almost insurmountable . . . a sorrow to read."
--The New York Times
"Patients' voices can all too easily be forgotten in the world of mental health care, but Jenny's voice rings strong. Through this earnest and captivating exposure, her father succeeds in keeping her story alive."
--David B. Herzog, M.D., president and founder of the Harvard Eating Disorders Center
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83
Unpack Your Eating Disorder: The Journey to Recovery for Adolescents in Treatment for Anorexia Nervosa and Atypical Anorexia Nervosa
Maria Ganci and Dr Linsey Atkins
4.0
An invaluable resource for adolescents suffering from anorexia nervosa
There are few things more difficult for an adolescent than battling Anorexia Nervosa (AN). While family, caregivers, and friends can support them to eat and recover, psychological recovery is a solitary journey clouded by fear and uncertainty where they are overwhelmed by feelings of guilt, shame, and disgust about who they are and how they look.
This book has been written specifically for the adolescents who are on this terrible journey. The authors promote the view that adolescents deserve to be fully involved in their treatment, to be heard, and to be given a voice to tell their story. It is through being understood by others that they can then understand themselves and make progress on their journey to recovery. This book emphasizes the crucial need for adolescents to develop a deep sense of who they are and an awareness of the many valuable resources which they can draw upon despite their internal conviction that they have none.
Every aspect of AN is addressed with a focus on helping adolescents understand that they do not need the illness to function. It helps them explore ways to stand up to AN instead of being captive to the illness and provides multiple methods for overcoming significant obstacles that AN puts in their way. Most importantly, it outlines a framework of psychological support for adolescents during the recovery process.
The information in the book is based on the latest evidence and the authors' combined clinical expertise over many years of working with adolescents and listening to their needs. This book is also a valuable resource for parents to help them understand and support their child as well as an indispensable guide for clinicians working in the field as it provides several effective treatment strategies focusing on adolescents.
About the Authors
Maria Ganci is a Registered Clinical Mental Health Social Worker and Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytical Psychotherapist. Maria has over 30 years' experience working with families, children, and adolescents in Mental Health Services. She has devoted the past 15 years to treating children and adolescents with Eating Disorders. Maria is the Co-Director of APT Therapeutic Solutions Pty. Ltd. and runs a successful private practice providing training, supervision, and consultation both nationally and internationally in the treatment of eating disorders. Maria is the author of Survive FBT: Skills Manual for Parents Undertaking Family Based Treatment (FBT) for Child and Adolescent Anorexia Nervosa.
Dr. Linsey Atkins is a Registered Clinical Psychologist with 15 years experience providing child, adolescent, parent, and family therapy for eating disorders.
Praise for Unpack Your Eating Disorder
"Unpack Your Eating Disorder is a brilliant resource for parents, caregivers, clinicians, and most importantly, the adolescents themselves who are experiencing the anorexia. It is the missing link in anorexia treatment today. It gives the adolescent a voice, understanding, and validation while providing critical and practical information about what is going on in the brain and why reactions and perceptions are not always as they seem. Reading this book in conjunction with the journal will no doubt help guide many struggling teenagers to have a better understanding of what is going on and help teach them to develop a healthier view of self as they work toward their recovery-Highly recommended." Christine Naismith, Parent. Eating Disorders Families Australia, EDFA (edfa.org.au)
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84
Diary of an Exercise Addict
Peach Friedman
4.0
In 2000, Peach Friedman, a college senior freshly broken up from her boyfriend, set out to beat the blues by beating herself into shape. Running ten miles a day and taking in as little as 800 calories, she fell from 146 pounds to 100 in three months and was at serious risk of cardiac arrest. What Friedman suffered from was exercise bulimia--a newly diagnosed and rapidly spreading eating disorder that affects some 400,000 American women, and which gyms and colleges across America are beginning to take seriously. In Diary of an Exercise Addict Friedman recounts her descent into a life-threatening illness, her remarkable recovery, and the setbacks along the way. With refreshing candor she lays bare her relationships with family, friends, and lovers and the repressed desire that finally surfaced as she found her own way back to health.
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85
The Mindful Eating Journal: Prompts and Practices to Restore Your Relationship with Food
Alyssa Snow Callahan
4.0
Revitalize your relationship with food through mindful guided journaling
We are all born as intuitive eaters, but listening to our bodies’ natural signals can become difficult. The Mindful Eating Journal helps you rediscover healthy eating habits using self-reflective journaling. Mindful prompts and practices build on each other, offering concrete steps you can take to silence your inner critic and take back your relationship with food.
Created by a Certified Intuitive Eating counselor, this journal gently helps you identify physical cues and dismantle flawed food beliefs. Work through the open-ended questions at your own pace to develop a daily practice of self-awareness and compassion. As you rebuild positive food habits through mindful eating, you can strengthen your mental―and physical―health.
The Mindful Eating Journal includes:
Thoughtful writing―Journaling exercises help you examine hunger cues, cravings, food choices, inner dialogues, emotional responses, and other aspects of mindful eating. Intuition exercises―Put your progress into practice with guided meditations and real-life exercises to implement on your mindful eating journey. Inspiring words―Thoughtful quotes inspire reflection, and a series of supportive mantras help center your meditation practice as you go.
Nourish your body and cultivate a healthy relationship with food through The Mindful Eating Journal.
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86
Perfect: Anorexia & Me
Emily Halban
4.0
Emily Halban developed anorexia in her final year of high school. She went on to college at an Ivy League school where her disease took on a powerful dimension. By her final year she was so debilitated that she had to take her exams in a separate room where she could be fed continuously. With heartbreaking candor and poignant intimacy, Emily vividly chronicles the complexities and inner struggles of living with anorexia. She traces her disease from its elusive origins, through its darkest moments of deprivation, guilt, and self-loathing. As she recounts her journey towards recovery, Emily draws us into her raw experience of anorexia, exposing its secrets and dispelling some of the myths that shroud it. Beautifully written and alive with self-awareness, but never self-pity, this inspiring read will offer those battling with this all-consuming disease a glimpse of perspective and hope, and help those on the outside to understand more.
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87
You Remind Me of You: A Poetry Memoir
Eireann Corrigan
4.0
A startling autobiographical account of a young woman's battle with eating disorders that put her in and out of hospitals over a span of four years and led to her own parents fighting for the right to commit her. When her last source of support, her boyfriend, attempts suicide and ends up in a coma, she is forced to find strength from within. A courageous story about the strange paths we take to recovery.
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88
Recover Your Perspective: A Guide To Understanding Your Eating Disorder and Creating Recovery Using CBT, DBT, and ACT
The true story of the 1986 U.S. National Gymnastics champion whose lifelong dream was to compete in the Olympics, until anorexia, injuries, and coaching abuses nearly destroyed her
Fanciful dreams of gold medals and Nadia Comaneci led Jennifer Sey to become a gymnast at the age of six. She was a natural at the sport, and her early success propelled her family to sacrifice everything to help her become, by age eleven, one of America’s elite,competing at prestigious events worldwide alongside such future gymnastics’ luminaries as Mary Lou Retton.
But as she set her sights higher and higher—the senior national team, the World Championships, the 1988 Olympics—Sey began to change, putting her needs, her health, and her well-being aside in the name of winning. And the adults in her life refused to notice her downward spiral.
In Chalked Up Sey reveals the tarnish behind her gold medals. A powerful portrait of intensity and drive, eating disorders and stage parents, abusive coaches and manipulative businessmen, denial and the seduction of success, it is the story of a young girl whose dreams would become eclipsed by the adults around her. As she recounts her experiences, Sey sheds light on the destructiveness of our winning-is-everything culture where underage and underweight girls are celebrated and on the need for balance in children’s lives.
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90
The Brain over Binge Recovery Guide: A Simple and Personalized Plan for Ending Bulimia and Binge Eating Disorder
Kathryn Hansen
4.0
This book is a much-requested follow-up to "Brain over Binge" (2011), in which the author shared how she used a basic understanding of neuroscientific principles to overcome bulimia. In this sequel and companion volume, with the help of fellow specialists and authors Amy Johnson, Ph.D., Katherine Thomson, Ph.D., and others, Kathryn Hansen lays out those same principles-and many more-in a self-help format that encourages and enables binge eaters to recover efficiently and effectively. Although recovery is not the same for everyone, this book posits that there are only two essential goals that must be met to end bulimia and binge eating disorder: (1) learning to dismiss urges to binge and (2) learning to eat adequately. As you work toward these goals with a streamlined focus, you will discover your own strength, develop your own insights, and put into practice ideas and behaviors that work uniquely and authentically for you. The Brain over Binge Recovery Guide is comprehensive in its length and scope, but utterly simple in its approach: You will read and use only what you need-continuing on in the book if you feel you need more information and guidance; putting it down and moving on with your life when you feel you're ready-so that you can start living binge-free as quickly and easily as possible.
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91
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Eating Disorders
Andrew Seubert NCCLMHC and Pam Virdi MEdRMNCPN
4.0
Delivers a proven treatment model for clinicians in all orientations
This unique, hands-on clinical guide examines the significant relationship between trauma, dissociation, and eating disorders and delivers a trauma-informed phase model that facilitates effective treatment of individuals with all forms of eating disorders. It describes, step-by-step, a four-phase treatment model encompassing team coordination, case formulation, and a trauma-informed, dissociation- and attachment-sensitive approach to treating eating disorders.
Edited by noted specialists in eating and other behavioral health disorders, Trauma-Informed Approaches to Eating Disorders examines eating disorders from neurological, medical, nutritional, and psychological perspectives. Dedicated chapters address each treatment phase from a variety of orientations, ranging from EMDR and CBT to body-centered and creative therapies. The book also reveals the effectiveness of a multifaceted, phase model approach. Recognizing the potential pitfalls and traps of treatment and recovery, it also includes abundant psychoeducational tools for the client.
KEY FEATURES:
Examines eating disorders from neurological, medical, nutritional, and psychological perspectives Highlights the relationship between trauma, dissociation, and eating disorders Maps out a proven, trauma-informed, four-phase model for approaching trauma treatment in general and eating disorders specifically Elucidates the approach from the perspectives of EMDR therapy, ego state therapy, somatosensory therapy, trauma-focused CBT, and many others Provides abundant psychoeducational tools for the client to deal with triggers and setbacks Offers the knowledge and expertise of over 20 international researchers, medical professionals, and clinicians --Graham Taylor, President "EMDR Association of Australia"
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92
Eating Disorders and Obesity, Third Edition: A Comprehensive Handbook
Kelly D. Brownell and B. Timothy Walsh
4.0
Acclaimed for its encyclopedic coverage, this is the only handbook that synthesizes current knowledge and clinical practices in the fields of both eating disorders and obesity. Like the prior editions, the significantly revised third edition features more than 100 concise, focused chapters with lists of key readings in place of extended references. All aspects of eating disorders and obesity are addressed by foremost clinical researchers: classification, causes, consequences, risk factors, and pathophysiology, as well as prevention, treatment, assessment, and diagnosis.
New to This Edition *Reflects 15 years of important advances in both fields, including state-of-the-art intervention approaches and a growing focus on how the brain regulates eating behavior. *Dozens of entirely new chapters. *New topics: epigenetics, body weight and neurocognitive function, stress and emotion regulation, the gut microbiome, surgical devices for obesity, food labeling and marketing, and more. *Expanded coverage of prevention and policy.
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93
Cut
Patricia McCormick
4.0
Callie cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside.
Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak.
But Callie can only stay silent for so long...
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94
Pretty Little Liars (Pretty Little Liars, #1)
Sara Shepard
4.0
EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE - ESPECIALLY HIGH SCHOOL JUNIORS SPENCER, ARIA, EMILY, AND HANNA
Spencer covets her sister's boyfriend. Aria's fantasizing about her English teacher. Emily's crushing on the new girl at school. Hanna uses some ugly tricks to stay beautiful. But they've all kept an even bigger secret since their friend Alison vanished.
How do I know? Because I know everything about the bad girls they were, the naughty girls they are, and the dirty secrets they've kept. And guess what? I'm telling.
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95
Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter
Randy L. Schmidt, Dionne Warwick
4.0
Little Girl Blue is an intimate profile of Karen Carpenter, a girl from a modest Connecticut upbringing who became a Superstar.
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96
Nothing
Robin Friedman
4.0
"Sometimes trees can look healthy on the outside, but actually be dying inside. These trees fall unexpectedly during a storm." For high school senior Parker Rabinowitz, anything less than success is a failure. A dropped extracurricular, a C on a calc quiz, a non-Jewish shiksa girlfriend--one misstep, and his meticulously constructed life splinters and collapses. The countdown to HYP (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) has begun, and he will stay focused. That's why he has to keep it a secret. The pocketful of breath mints. The weird smell in the bathroom. He can't tell his achievement-obsessed father. He can't tell his hired college consultant. And he certainly can't tell Julianne, the "vision of hotness" he so desperately wants to love. Only Parker's little sister Danielle seems to notice that he's withering away. But the thunder of praise surrounding Parker and his accomplishments reduces her voice to broken poetry: I can't breathe when my brother's around because I feel smothered, blank and faded
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97
Tiny Pretty Things (Tiny Pretty Things, #1)
Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton
4.0
Soon to be a Netflix TV show!
Black Swan meets Pretty Little Liars in this soapy, drama-packed novel featuring diverse characters who will do anything to be the prima at their elite ballet school.
From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Belles, Dhonielle Clayton, and the author of the highly anticipated Symptoms of a Heartbreak, Sona Charaipotra.
Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama. Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might kill her. Privileged New Yorker Bette's desire to escape the shadow of her ballet-star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her. And perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever.
When every dancer is both friend and foe, the girls will sacrifice, manipulate, and backstab to be the best of the best.
Don’t miss the gossip, lies, and scandal that continues in Tiny Pretty Things’ gripping sequel, Shiny Broken Pieces!
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Cover unavailable
98
Eating With Your Anorexic: A Mother's Memoir
Laura Collins, James Lock, Cynthia M. Bulik
4.0
An updated edition of the controversial memoir, Eating With Your Anorexic. New foreword, updates, and reflections by the author on a decade of advocacy in the eating disorder world.
Cover unavailable
99
Fat Chance
Lesléa Newman
4.0
Judi Liebowitz thinks she's fat. And she's convinced, as she confides in her diary, that she'd be happier if she were skinnier. So when Judi becomes friendly with pencil-thin, glamorous Nancy Pratt, she learns Nancy's secret and joins her in the secret binge-and-purge cycles of bulimia. Before long, Judi's life spins out of control and her obsession with food, calories, and pounds is no longer another typical eighth-grade problem--it's a matter of life and death.
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Cover unavailable
100
Anorexia and other Eating Disorders: how to help your child eat well and be well: Practical solutions, compassionate communication tools and emotional support for parents of children and teenagers
Eva Musby
4.0
Parents are best placed to help their teenager or young child beat an eating disorder, yet most struggle to know what to do and how to do it.
In Anorexia and Other Eating Disorders, Eva Musby draws on her family’s successful use of evidence-based treatment to empower you to support your child through recovery.
. Learn practical and effective mealtime skills
. Help your child to eat well and be free of fears and compulsions
. Know what to say and what not to say in highly charged situations
. Recognise the treatments that work and the ones that don’t
. Develop your own emotional resources
However difficult your situation, this book gives you the tools you need to care for your child, your family and yourself. Using compassionate presence, Nonviolent Communication, mindfulness and acceptance, Eva Musby plots out a path towards well-being.
With a wealth of guidance and practical examples, Anorexia and Other Eating Disorders is an invaluable guide to coping with and overcoming an eating disorder in the family.
"Finally! I have read anything and everything on anorexia and this is the most helpful by far"
CONTENTS
1. How this book can help you
2. How does an eating disorder affect you and your child?
3. Your part in diagnosis
4. Treatment: the essentials
5. What parents need to know about the causes of eating disorders
6. Practical steps to help your child beat the eating disorder
7. How do you get your child to eat in spite of the eating disorder?
8. See the tools in action: mealtime scenarios
9. How to free your child of fears and rules: exposure therapy
10. The road to full recovery
11. Partners, friends, family and work: help or hindrance?
12. How to make treatment and therapy work for your child and for you
13. Powerful tools for well-being and compassionate connection
14. Love, no matter what: how to support your child with compassionate communication
15. How to build up your own resilience and well-being
Appendix: Compassionate or Nonviolent Communication (NVC)
Note: If you are dealing with an eating disorder other than anorexia, some of the practical tools might not apply to you. Most of the emotional ones will.
"Your book is packed with helpful information for parents and has been brilliant for my patients and for our team. The book and video can help to sustain the family until we meet them again. I also show the video in multi-family groups and in teaching the Maudsley approach to other professionals around the country." Esther Blessitt, Senior Systemic Psychotherapist, writing on behalf of the Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders Service (CAMHS), Maudsley Hospital, London.
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