Lying in Weight: The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women »

Trisha Gura, Ph.D., has written extensively for such publications as Science, Nature, Scientific American, the Chicago Tribune, Prevention, Child, Health, and Parents. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology and is a Resident Scholar at Brandeis University near Boston, Massachusetts.

It is commonly held that the sufferers of anorexia nervosa and bulimia are angst-ridden teenage girls who impose unrealistic beauty standards on their still-developing bodies. In Lying in Weight, Gura explodes the myths that adolescence is the only time of life that these disorders manifest and that women who achieve a normal weight after contending with eating disorders are "cured." Shockingly, tens of millions of American women -- overlooked by the medical and mental health communities because they're older than 25 and understudied -- suffer from "food issues" that can be linked to any number of disruptive changes and challenges throughout their lives. These triggers -- marriage, the birth of a child, menopause, stress from child rearing, marital difficulties and depression -- bring about emotional, psychological and medical problems that play out under the radar in women who live in the throes of food obsessions.

Booklist

“Gura proffers helpful counsel to those willing to heed it.”

Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction: Confidences and Lies     xi
Chronicity: The Myth of Recovery     1
Adolescence: Girls in Women's Clothing: Eating Disorders Stunt Psychological Development     24
Young Adulthood: She, He, and It: A Lover's Triangle     61
Pregnancy: An Oasis in an Eating-Disordered Life     98
Parenting Years: A Kind of Sibling Rivalry: When the Eating Disorder Competes with Children     136
Midlife: Eating Disorders: Millstones or Stepping-stones?     188
Late Life: Never Too Old to Be Too Thin     225
Healing: The Ongoing Chapter in an Eating-Disordered Life     258
Helpful Organizations     307
Directory of Treatment Facilities     309
The Clinical Definitions of Eating Disorders     315
Notes     319
Bibliography     351
Index     353