A Hunger So Wide And So Deep: A Multiracial View of Women's Eating Problems

by Becky W. Thompson

The first of its kind, A Hunger So Wide and So Deep challenges the popular notion that eating problems occur only among white, well-to-do, heterosexual women. Becky W. Thompson shows us how race, class, sexuality, and nationality can shape women's eating problems. Based on in-depth life history interviews with African-American, Latina, and lesbian women, her book chronicles the effects of racism, poverty, sexism, acculturation, and sexual abuse on women's bodies and eating patterns. A Hunger So Wide and So Deep dispels popular stereotypes of anorexia and bulimia as symptoms of vanity and underscores the risks of mislabeling what is often a way of coping with society's own disorders. By featuring the creative ways in which women have changed their unwanted eating patterns and regained trust in their bodies and appetites, Thompson offers a message of hope and empowerment that applies across race, class, and sexual preference.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Mental Health, Race, Gender, Feminism, School

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you only read one book on eating disorders, read this one. It really blows away the myth that eating disorders are a disease of white middle class women who want to be skinny. The author instead explores the intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality as they interact with eating disorders. She examines the root causes of eating disorders and the use of eating disorders as a means of coping with traumas such as institutional oppression, sexual violence, and other forms of abuse.

By using the personal stories of women from a variety of racial, class, ethnic and religious backgrounds, the author provides concrete examples that not only support her theories but also make the issues easier to understand.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I really liked the overall premise for the book--its a multicultural look at women's experiences with eating disorders--it ended up being a little disappointing. Some of the stories seemed redundant/repetitive, and the overall style of the book was basically listing what the author had found in her case studies. That said, its fantastic that people are finally doing work on eating disorders among women of color. Thompson also makes a compelling argument for how lesbians have also been ignored in previous studies of eating disorders and yet represent a significant number of women who binge/fast/excessively diet.

[Kelsey Hoeper · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The prevention of eating problems depends on changing the social conditions that support violence and injustice. Effectively combating eating problems hinges on understand that there are many possible approaches: going to Egypt, getting financial aid to attend college, working for a crisis hot line, becoming an athlete, seeking counseling, becoming an activist, joining a self-help group.”

[Marci · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had been on my “to read” list for far too long. While this book was published 26 years ago it’s just as relevant today. I’d consider it essential reading for all ED professionals.

[grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

never have i read anything that has explored the intersectionality of eating disorders and sociology 1. in such a successful way, and 2. with such compassion. i am haunted and changed.

[Amy Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In A Hunger so Wide and so Deep, Sociologist Becky W Thomspon explores the intersections between trauma, eating "problems" (she doesn't agree with the term disorders) and social injustices including racism and homophobia.

She first explores how eating problems start off as the way to cope with trauma, and asserts that the term "disorder" doesn't fit as the behavior is first developed as a coping mechanism that serves an important purpose.

She then introduces the idea that trauma often disrupts our sense of our body and leads to disembodiment, in that leaving ones body is a survival strategy.

I was very intrigued by the first chapter but became increasingly uncomfortable with the narrative detail in subsequent chapters on the various abuses the women she interviewed suffered. I imagine this could be very triggering to survivors of sexual abuse.

In chapter 5, she explores why women turn to food as their method of coping. I had several a-ha moments when she explained that bingeing sedates, lessens anxiety and induces sleep, while dieting can distract us from pain, anger & confusion. Food is also readily available to most of us, and is usually much easier to obtain than alcohol or other drugs. The idea that eating problems start as a solution to a specific kind of pain and then becoming a generalized response to stress is stunning.

She concludes her book by stating "the prevention of eating problems depends on changing the social conditions that support violence and injustice"

Absolutely.

Bottom line for me: extremely well written and researched book. Sitting with a lot of uncomfortable feelings but still glad that I read it. If you have a trauma history you may wish to proceed with caution.


[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

In all my years of reading about eating disorders, I've never read a book like this before. Becky W. Thompson offers heavy, yet relatable stories from working class women and women of color, paired with a strong liberation analysis that connects disordered eating with oppression and trauma. She frames eating disorders as protective and smart coping mechanisms against a hostile society. The book upends assumptions not only in the clinical/DSM-informed understanding of disordered eating, but also in common stereotypes of eating disorders largely affecting a certain race or class of women. In many instances, Thompson explains and validates nuanced feelings that I struggled for years to articulate. To Thompson, pathologizing complex eating issues is reductive, and a failure to engage with social problems that cause them, opting instead to push sufferers toward individualized "treatment." This was written in 1995, so there are some voices missing: namely Asian, trans, or disabled women. I would be interested in an update that includes more complex experiences from outside the absolute center of the discourse.

[Rohit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful set of stories from women (mostly women of color or ethnic whites) about how and why they developed eating problems like bulimia and anorexia. The stories blast apart mainstream ideas about eating disorders/problems as being about food specifically, rather than embedded in wider societal systems of violence and oppression. The book gives a very persuasive and cutting analysis of how the over or under-consumption of food was in fact a solution to horrific problems that these women faced as children and adolescents, problems which were a combination of cultural alienation, domestic violence, sexual abuse, racism, sexism, and/or homophobia.

Overall a very powerful and important text. Although unfortunately, there wasn't as much a focus on recovery and healing (although the last chapter did have some inspirational stories of women recovering), or what good support systems look like and and how they can be better developed.

[a.]

I feel weird rating this so I won't be doing so. Useful tool in examining eating disorders and their correlation with the fat body. I'm really glad that I read this but it kicked my ass in a way that was personally pretty damaging. A bit repetitive at times, which seems to have been an authorial choice more than anything to really drill some points home, but it felt a bit clunky because of that.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harrowing! Healing! Deeply painful; deeply insightful! Womanhood is a hell of a thing.

[Alice Deligny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty useful and informative ; gets dark, I guess I recommand with caution around themes of sexual/physical abuse, emotional abuse, drug abuse...

[Rachel Miller Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

An antiracist sociologist’s look at women’s eating problems through the lenses of identity, culture, and trauma. Brilliant.

[veronica]

never in my life have i come across an intersectional analysis of eating problems (the author avoids the term “disorder” because medicalizes these behaviors, which the author contextualizes as coping mechanisms to forms of abuse). Thompson scrutinizes the dominant ideology of eating issues as only affecting white, middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual women who aim for a specific body type (thinness) due to body image issues. she does not deny the existence of these issues but rather reframes this dominant ideology that leaves out women of color, poor women, LGBTQ+ women, and immigrant women.

as i read this, i felt so seen! there were times when i would read something and pace around my room, equally euphoric and sick to my stomach, trying to process how the interviewees and author could verbalize feelings that i could not. this book helped me put together more things in my life than 5 years of therapy ever could. knowledge truly is power.

like any great study, there are some things missing that i would love to see (and i really hope the author comes out with some kind of updated version); more of a focus on race and eating problems, policing/incarceration/the criminal injustice system and how they facilitate eating problems; how eating problems and trauma are passed down to children, particularly children of first-gen immigrants; people with disabilities; more on self-starvation (there was a special focus on binging/purging, and occasionally self-starvation that led to bingeing and purging… but not the act of self-starvation in and of itself); so much more. but that does not devalue any of the work the author did to put together this amazing book. no study can do it all; rather, they add to an ongoing conversation.

apparently, this is the most recently published book that applies an intersectional analysis of eating issues. and it was published 30 years ago! so much has changed since then; the rise of new technologies, forms of social media, increased reproductive injustices, etc. and the dominant ideology still stands, particularly with the rise of online media platforms. so basically, if you see me writing my thesis or dissertation on this topic, don’t be surprised. and a big thank you to my professor, ingrid, for assigning this book.

[McKenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

More like a two and a half star rating. Main criticism is the lack of repercussions described in relation to engaging in prolonged behaviors such as binging, purging, and/or starving. I got the impression at some points that the author was glamorizing the use of food as a means of coping, though indirectly of course. I do like the premise of the book and I was impressed with some of the information explained because of how long ago this was published, but I did find a lot of the realism lacking regarding physical and social consequences of eating disorders, such as: risk of heart failure, rotting/decaying teeth, loss in bone density (e.g. osteoporosis), failed organs (liver, kidneys, etc), loss of sex drive, severe depression, etc.

[Kerri Killeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slightly dated, but useful case studies and analysis of eating problems in marginalized woman. Author deliberately oversampled women of color and lesbians (no straight, white women were included in the work) which has some limitations, but to date is one of the few surveys of women's eating problems through the lenses of race and sexuality. It is worth noting that no Asian women were included in the survey. Women were also classified solely within the binary of heterosexual or lesbian. The analysis shows clear connections between trauma (including racial trauma) and eating problems, and makes clear that eating problems (or eating disorders) are often a symptom of other issues in which food is a maladaptive coping mechanism.

[New · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book and would recommend it to anyone

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explores the experience of minority women with eating disorders. The aim of the author is to combat the stereotype that eating disorders are an upper-class, white, female problem only (although there are no males in this book). This book did the best job of any I've read of discussing the many possible experiences of eating disorders, from types of disorders to their possible causes and possible roads to recovery. This author didn't have a theory or agenda she was attempting to prove using case studies, she wanted to study an idea (that eating disorders can cut across class, race, sexuality, etc) which is true and hasn't been much addressed.

[Katie Wennechuk · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was way too academic and specific to be of any real benefit to me. Perhaps it was also a little outdated and blamey too. Or maybe we all know by now when we're eating and not physically hungry something else is going on. We're all more powerful than the beauty myth anyway so let's just get on with it.

[Alysia · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you struggle with eating disorders this book helps you realize you are not alone. The stories of the women in this compilation brought me full circle to taking a look my own relationship with food. In my opinion, it's a must-read!!

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a mentor and friend, this book remains one of the only texts that addresses eating problems across the lines of race, sexuality and class.

[Fatima]

from Wellesley College

[Melanie Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing look at things that I never considered issues in keeping women from getting the help they need concerning food issues attached to emotional and physical trauma.

[Kyla]

Looks like it actually speaks to intersection of EDs and sexuality