This chapter:

• reveals that eating disorders are common in the world of dance.

• describes case studies of two women battling anorexia nervosa.

• describes the toll anorexia can take on the body including low blood pressure, damage to the kidneys and liver, and heart failure.

• notes that anorexia has increased by 36 percent every five years since the 1950s—at least 8 million people suffer from it—and the most vulnerable age group is 15-24 year old women.

This chapter:

• reveals some reasons women develop eating disorders.

• recounts how the thin look became glamorous with 1960s model Twiggy.

• introduces Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of "Fasting Girls," and her ideas concerning society's idealization of thinness.

• profiles a plus-size model and her struggles with weight, anorexia, and the modeling industry's expectations concerning thinness.

• reports historical accounts of food refusal and reasons for it.

This chapter:

• states that three out of every 100 women develop anorexia or bulimia.

• suggests why some people may develop an eating disorder.

• describes common personality traits of people with eating disorders.

• notes that serotonin plays a role in mood and appetite and reports on animal and human studies of brain serotonin levels and their relationship to diet and starvation.

This chapter:

• states that anorexia is one of the most difficult psychiatric illnesses to treat.

• conveys the importance of addressing the underlying causes that led to the disorder as well as the related symptoms and behaviors.

• discusses the experiences and feelings of some people with anorexia.

• describes typical personality traits of anorexics.

This chapter:

• profiles a 21-year-old ballerina and her struggles with both anorexia and a self-inflicting cutting behavior.

• tells that for many dancers, there is a tendency to diet because one of the only things they feel they can control is how much and what they eat.

• states that eating disorders are more common in women than men, but men are still afflicted.

• notes that dancers are at particular risk for developing osteoporosis as a consequence of anorexia.

This chapter:

• explains that strenuous exercise leads to a form of anorexia where appetite is healthy but exercise is out of control.

• states that anxiety can be an underlying symptom of exercise anorexia.

• profiles a woman with this form of anorexia whose heart rate plummeted after she worked out after running a marathon.

• cites a possible reason why Prozac is often not initially helpful for anorexics.

This chapter:

• explains that the disorder bulimia nervosa, involving binge eating and purging, often begins when girls are 18 years old and at a normal weight.

• notes that Prozac, psychotherapy, and cognitive behavior therapy often are helpful treatments for bulimia.

• explains that one aspect of bulimia relates to disturbances in feeling satisfied with a meal—the body chemical CCK contributes to sensations of fullness, but for bulimics, less CCK is released, and they continue to eat.

• reports on a study regarding how food is processed in active and recovering bulimics.

This chapter:

• looks at the recovery of three women profiled in the program who had been afflicted with an eating disorder.