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

by Trisha Gura

A girl with an eating disorder grows up. And then what? In this groundbreaking new book, science journalist Trisha Gura, Ph.D., explodes the myth that those who suffer from eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, are primarily teenage girls. In reality, these diseases linger from adolescence or emerge anew in the lives of adult women in ways that we are only starting to recognize. Millions of American women twenty-five and older suffer from serious food issues, from obsessions with calorie counting to compulsions to starve then overeat. Because of the assumption that age provides eating-disordered immunity, the medical and mental health communities have long overlooked these women and minimized their dangerous habits. Yet the number of women in their thirties, forties, and older now seeking treatment is double and triple that of five years ago. The growing awareness of this understudied population is raising relevant How does an adult woman's eating disorder affect her choice of a husband—or his choice of her? How does she cope with her expanding body during pregnancy? How does she feed her children when she cannot properly feed herself? And how does she weather aging in a culture that informs all women that they can never be too old to be too thin? Drawing on her own experience with anorexia, the most up-to-date research, and extensive interviews with clinicians and sufferers, Gura addresses these concerns and concludes that eating disorders, at least some vestigeof them, tend to lie dormant throughout a woman's life. Eating disorders in adults may not replicate those of adolescents and tend to emerge at the most vulnerable periods in a woman's life—marriage, the birth of a child, stress from child rearing, marital difficulties, depression, and menopause. Though the media may tell us that the girl with an eating disorder overcomes her demons with age and hard work, the reality is that she often doesn't. A girl with an eating disorder is a woman prone to relapse. Lying in Weight is a startling, timely, and imperative investigation of eating disorders "all grown up." Women are suffering from a hidden, horrid, and life-threatening epidemic. This book is a shot across the bow to confront the problem and address the real issues. Isn't it time to end the suffering?

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Gender, Self Help, Research

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Trisha Gura, Ph.D. is a molecular biologist and former journalist for the Chicago Tribune. She earned a Knight science journalism fellowship at MIT and Harvard. Today, she is a resident scholar at Brandeis University, a freelance writer, and author of Lying in Weight: The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders.

Reviews

[Allie Knoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️3.5 - just bc it’s kind of dry and I didn’t love the writing style

What I’ll say about this book & eating disorders in general: Eating disorders are a MENTAL ILLNESS.

The thought that this issue only impacts young white upper middle class girls and that it magically resolves once the girl becomes a woman is the exact reason it continues to plague the lives of so many. You don’t tell someone with depression to just think positive and cross your fingers that it works, which is exactly why telling someone with an eating disorder to “just eat more” doesn’t work either. It’s not a one and done issue. We have to eat to survive. It kills me that so many older women (and I know men suffer silently too) suffer under the radar because we don’t expect someone in their 60s to care about their bodies or how they look. If we consider that it generally is never about looks and vanity then we can better understand how to effectively treat the person suffering.

Last thing: There’s no LOOk of an eating disorder. That bs logic keeps people from getting help bc they don’t feel they’re “sick enough” to need it bc maybe they’re a “normal weight” or whatever the fuck. It’s a mental illness, and last I checked you didn’t have to be a certain weight to qualify as mentally unwell.

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

A weird mix of too much anecdote and too much glossing over. It seems to me it should matter that not all people with eating disorders are women, straight, that they belong to varying social classes. And while it's fine to say "Some women recovering from eating disorders do this and some don't," that's really all the book is and maybe all it could be. I got plenty out of it but it basically wasn't what I wanted.

[Melissa McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I learned from this book? More than I can even put into a review! This book changed my life!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memorable quotes:

"The danger is in growing overly confident... Like cancer in remission, eating disorders offer no hard-and-fast rules about how long a woman can live eating disorder–free and consider herself 'done with it'" (203).

"By viewing anorexia as a perversion of a powerful personality, I can heal myself by channeling my gifts into something healthy" (293).

"The eating disorder is a very creative act developed by a desperate and strong person who is fighting as hard as she can for her life" (34).

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. at this point i can be considered an Older eating disorder haver (insert existential crisis), so this seemed like the most relevant thing i could possibly read as i was teetering on the edge of a relapse for the past month. i can’t say i gained a lot of new information about eating disorders as a whole (i ended up skimming the final chapter about recovery methods as i was familiar with all of them), but it gave a great deal of context to my mom’s eating disorder, especially her midlife relapse, and how it affected me growing up with her behaviors.

[Nancyann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look at how eating disorders affect women at various stages in their lives, past adolescence. Having a few of my closest friends seriously struggle with eating disorders of their own, and seeing how prevalent it is among girls, I wanted to understand and learn more about them. The book had a nice combination of personal experiences as well as research and scientific study to support its claims. Very eye opening and well written.

[Peggy Sharp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book because of its unique emphasis on adult women with eating disorders. Each chapter focuses on an important phase in a woman’s life and finally I could see myself in the young adult, pregnancy, and middle age chapters.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt very dated. The author placed all the blame for eating disorders on mothers, which is wildly inaccurate. Then when she gets into the end about getting treatment there is a page about it maybe not being affordable or covered by insurance? There was so much that was just not on point.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting but now in 2023, a lot of the research is outdated.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

*The latent beast of eating disorders*

Lying in Weight exposes the myth that eating disorders are time-limited ones that resolve themselves when a woman leaves the battleground of adolescence. Although eating disorders tend to have their roots in adolescence, the author convincingly argues how "An eating disorder can fit into any part of development and slowly but powerfully disrupt proper development of the whole."

A main theme of this book is that when the key psychosocial developmental milestones have not been achieved, women are more vulnerable to eating disorders during stressful life transitions. In particular, the adolescent who does not develop a solid identity is at increased risk for an eating disorder when life stresses arise during her young adulthood, pregnancy, parenting, and older adulthood phases of life. This book provides a wealth of information, understanding, and insight as to how the "latent beast" of eating disorders can surface throughout the lifespan. And, equally as important, Lying in Weight provides hope that with therapy, commitment, and resiliency, recovery is possible: for the 16 year-old struggling with anorexia, for the 65 year-old battling bulimia, and for everyone else in between.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this book. It's great to see EDs addressed as a potentially lifelong problem, which I actually found very encouraging. When most of the literature on eating disorders seems to focus on curing adolescents and lasting recovery this book is for the women who may have lived with an ED for years, or relapsed after years of recovery. Trisha Gura talks as a former sufferer of an ED and an informed scientist about the lifelong triggers and how EDs affect women of different ages. There's a lot of practical help and interesting facts - for anyone whatever their stage of life or recovery.

[Kater Cheek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book because I enjoy reading about problems I don't have, and because anorexia and bulimia fascinate me. The book is better at bringing light onto the problem of adults with eating disorders and not so good at offering solutions. If you know someone still struggling wiht anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders, this book might be more depressing than helpful. If you like reading about malaria, yellowjack, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, you might like this one too.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book if you or someone you know has struggled with eating issues. I found it by turns alarming and interesting to see how what I thought was a teenaged phase has actually manifested itself in other phases of my life. After not having read much on this subject for many years, it was also interesting to see the new research/theories on the topic.

[Alexis Waggoner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was slightly depressing, or perhaps hopeless is a better word. Sure there were a few stories of recovery and healing, but for the most part negative and not uplifting. Maybe it is something that never truly goes away. On the other hand, it was informative and gave way to some perspectives I had not yet explored.

[Selkie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, a book that actually states there is no magic cure for eating disorders; that it tends to be an on-going problem in one's life much like alcoholism, & one does not always get better from treatment, or die from it.
Why four our of five stars only, then? The book tends to be a bit redundant in places repeating statistics.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Average. Mostly skimmed, though; couldn't keep my attention. And call me a weirdo, but I like to read the personal stories. It feels like driving past accidents; you just can't look away from them, and not think "there but for the grace of God"...

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The pace is a bit too fast with this, and feels like it is trying to cram in a surplus of facts, figures and anecdotes, but none of them resounds with anything more than a superficial echo. I appreciate the premise, but the actualization is too weak to continue.

[stephanie]

(picked up at APA) adult women and eating disorders. moved high up on the list of things to read new.

[Marcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some interesting stuff. I learned a bit.

[Bridgett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about eating disorders in older patients, including how pregnancy tends to affect people with eating disorders.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, but it kind of dragged on near the end.