This book takes a unique approach to the examination of the eating disorder, anorexia nervosa (and bulimia). White, middle-class, heterosexual women share their insights into the emergence of their illnesses through detailed interviews that consider perceptions of the role of family, the influence of cultural messages regarding thinness and beauty, the agency these women exert in the use of weight control to cope with life s stressors, the meaning they attach to their eating disorders and how these issues together perpetuate their disease.

The book uses a Symbolic Interactionist...