ABSTRACT
This chapter provides five books that address what it means for women to be fat and thin in contemporary North America. All five volumes provide social-psychological analyses of women's obsession with fat. The books express a humanistic sensitivity to women tormented by obsessive thoughts of food, starvation or gorging; and caught in a vicious cycle of guilt, self-loathing, and despair. At the same time, the books are convincing; their data and arguments speak strongly. Four principal themes emerge from the books as explanations of eating disorders: confusion over sexual identity and sexuality; struggle with issues of power, control, and release; solitude and deceit; and family strife. While anorexics retreat from female sexuality by becoming childlike and asexual, overweight women accomplish the same end by becoming fat. Some women exercise this control by eating and becoming fat.
