Anorexia is one of the most puzzling illnesses of our time. Recent decades have seen a growth in the disorder which now affects more than one in 100 women. This book presents compelling new data from 104 anorexics that challenges established opinion about what kind of people contract the disorder. Writing from a sociological perspective, the author asks if medical definitions of anorexia always reflect patients experiences and if the stereotype of the anorexic as a fat phobic, middle-class adolescent is genuinely supported by data. By combining moving testimony in patients own words together...