Donnalee Frega confronts the growing tendency in both popular and scholarly studies to view eating disorders as a secret and private form of negative self-expression "suffered" primarily by women. Drawing on history, clinical studies, and literature, Frega's comprehensive study approaches anorexia not as an illness, but as a dangerous strategy employed by healthy young people of both sexes against unrealistic expectations of perfection. The author considers the broad range of social and cultural factors that have defined "abnormal" eating practices throughout history, and she convincingly...