"I found this to be a top-notch scholarly work written in a way that will be accessible for diverse audiences including students, professional clinicians, academics, and the interested lay public." - Janet Dixon Keller, University of Illinois

The recovered possess the key to overcoming anorexia. Although individual sufferers do not know how the affliction takes hold, piecing their stories together reveals two accidental afflictions. One is that activity disorders-dieting, exercising, healthy eating-start as virtuous practices, but become addictive obsessions. The other affliction is a...

Breastfeeding and child feeding at the center of nurturing practices, yet the work of nurture has escaped the scrutiny of medical and social scientists. Anthropology offers a powerful biocultural approach that examines how custom and culture interact to support nurturing practices. Our framework shows how the unique constitutions of mothers and infants regulate each other. The Dance of Nurture integrates ethnography, biology and the political economy of infant feeding into a holistic framework guided by the metaphor of dance. It includes a critique of efforts to improve infant...