A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: American Women Speak Out on Eating Problems - Tapa dura

This work challenges the popular notion that eating disorders occur only among white, well-to-do, heterosexual women. Based on in-depth life history interviews with African-American, Latina, and lesbian women, this book chronicles the effects of racism, poverty, sexism, acculturation, and sexual abuse on women's eating patterns and bodies. By revealing how these girls and women use eating to "make a way outa no way", it dispels popular stereotypes of anorexia and bulimia as symptoms of vanity and stresses the risks of mislabelling what is often a way of coping with society's own disorders. With its multicultural focus, this book not only brings women of colour and lesbians into our picture of eating problems, but also clears up many demeaning and sexist ideas about these problems among white women. By featuring the creative ways in which women have changed their unwanted eating patterns and regained trust in their bodies and appetites, it also offers a message of hope and empowerment that applies across race, class, and sexuality.

Becky W. Thompson is a visiting assistant professor of African American studies and sociology at Wesleyan University.