Parents Wrongly Assume That Their Daughters Live

I Think Anorexia Is A Metaphor. It Is A Young Woman's Statement That She Will Become What The Culture Asks Of Its Women, Which Is That They Be Thin And Nonthreatening. Anorexia Signifies That A Young Woman Is So Delicate That, Like The Women Of China With Their Tiny Broken Feet, She Needs A Man To Shelter And Protect Her From A World She Cannot Handle. Anorexic Women Signal With Their Bodies "i Will Take Up Only A Small Amount Of Space. I Won't Get In The Way." They Signal "i Won't Be Intimidating Or Threatening." (who Is Afraid Of A Seventy-pound Adult?)

Coming Out Of The Trance Of Denial Is Painful. But Crises Offer Us Opportunities To Rethink Our Lives. The Best Thing About Despair Is That It Wakes Us Up. We Can See The World More Clearly And Open To New Possibilities...and We Can Find New Joy In The Ordinary.

Girls Developed Eating Disorders When Our Culture Developed A Standard Of Beauty That They Couldn't Obtain By Being Healthy. When Unnatural Thinness Became Attractive, Girls Did Unnatural Things To Be Thin.

Teenage Girls Are Extremists Who See The World In Black-and- White Terms, Missing Shades Of Gray. Life Is Either Marvelous Or Notworth Living. School Is Either Pure Torment Or Is Going Fantastically. Other People Are Either Great Or Horrible, And They Themselves Are Wonderful Or Pathetic Failures. One Day A Girl Will Refer To Herself As "the Goddess Of Social Life" And The Next Day She'll Regret That She's The "ultimate In Nerdosity.

Maturity Involves Being Honest And True To Oneself, Making Decisions Based On A Conscious Internal Process, Assuming Responsibility For One's Decisions, Having Healthy Relationships With Others And Developing One's Own True Gifts. It Involves Thinking About One's Environment And Deciding What One Will And Won't Accept.