Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa

by Joan Jacobs Brumberg

An acclaimed classic from the award-winning author of The Body Project presents a history of women's food-refusal dating back as far as the sixteenth century, providing compassion to victims and their families.

Here is a tableau of female self-denial: medieval martyrs who used starvation to demonstrate religious devotion, "wonders of science" whose families capitalized on their ability to survive on flower petals and air, silent screen stars whose strict "slimming" regimens inspired a generation. Here, too, is a fascinating look at how the cultural ramifications of the Industrial Revolution produced a disorder that continues to render privileged young women helpless. Incisive, compassionate, illuminating, Fasting Girls offers real understanding to victims and their families, clinicians, and all women who are interested in the origins and future of this complex, modern and characteristically female disease.

• ISBN10: 0375724486
• ISBN13: 9780375724480
• Publish Date: 10 October 2000 (first published 1 May 2000)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 13 December 2008
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Vintage Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780375724480

Reviews

[celinenyx]

Fantastic book focussing on the socio-cultural history of anorexia. Sensitive, well-researched, and still current despite originally being published in the eighties.

[wyvernfriend]

This is a historian's look at Anorexia and it's rise since victorian times. Interesting in how it looks at body image and how it's changed over the years combined with how the attitude of many of the people involved has changed.
Disturbing in many ways it's an indictment in how divorced from reality our perception of fat and body image has become.