The Boulder County Eating Disorders Coalition operates in partnership with
Healthy Youth Alliance of Boulder County and Parent Engagement Network.
Information on this website if for informational and educational purposes only.
book reviews
Lying in Weight: The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women
by Trisha Gura, Ph.D. Harper Collins ISBN: 978-0-06-076148-6
review submitted by Ana LaMarque
Drawing on her own experience with Anorexia, science writer Trisha Gura shatters the myth that eating disorders strike primarily teenage girls. Instead, she chronicles how eating disorders persist throughout women’s lives, emerging when they are most vulnerable: after childbirth, menopause, divorce, or the death of a parent. Gura illustrates how any of these events may provoke a life-threatening relapse or worsen a chronic, sub-clinical disorder believed to be “under control.” While the media suggests girls grow out of eating disorders, Lying in Weight offers a heartfelt picture of how vulnerable women with disordered eating may be, and how important it is that their suffering is recognized and addressed.
Regaining the Self by Ira Sacker, M.D.
ISBN 1-4013-0305-6
Hyperion, 2007
This book is available in the Boulder Public Library system
“Regaining Your Self,” is one of the best books I’ve read on eating disorders in a long time. Dr. Sacker goes beyond symptoms and focuses on the core issues behind anorexia, bulimia, exercise bulimia, binge eating disorder, and compulsive overeating. His opinion, informed by a long career as a clinician, is that, along with perfection and anxiety, identity is at the heart of eating disorders. For those lacking a strong internal sense of self, an eating disorder fills a void.
Dr. Sacker’s approach, which he calls Personal Interactive Rational Therapy (PIRT), offers a way to help people find something else to fill that void. Dr. Sacker urges clinicians to treat the person, not the eating disorder. When the individual finds his or her own passionate interests, these may dislodge the eating disorder that has taken the place of a strong identity.
This is not an instantaneous process. Dr. Sacker presents a very realistic picture of recovery, which often includes what he calls slips, lapses, relapses and collapses. I think this discussion is especially helpful for family members and adults whose eating disordered behavior returns.
In fact, I believe “Regaining Your Self,” is more appropriate for clinicians, family members, and eating disordered adults than it is for children and early adolescents. The book asks the reader to reflect on the nature of eating disorders—it does not describe what to do at the point of crisis.
That said, Dr. Sacker does a wonderful job of getting to the heart of what may be driving the illness, and what might impede recovery. I especially like his straightforward acknowledgement that those with eating disorders are struggling with a particularly burdensome anxiety. He allows that anxiety does not go away, but one can learn to manage it without using eating-disordered behaviors that turn the internal anxiety into a fixation on anxiety to food, weight, and body image.
Dr. Sacker’s message is essentially hopeful. He offers many first-hand accounts of individuals—girls and boys, men and women—who have survived eating disorders and their relapses. My only criticism is that Dr. Sacker relies heavily on the help of professional clinicians, rather than allowing that those without the means for years of therapy might still use his approach themselves. “Regaining Your Self,” could be an adjunct for therapy or offer support to those who continue to have even occasional bouts of eating disordered thoughts.
Review by Ana Lamarque
Book reviews may be submitted by BCEDC members.
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