Wasted a Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

¶ … Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia'

Marya Hornbacher's book "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia" is a painful discussion of the life of someone who struggles with this affliction. When Hornbacher was only nine years old, she became bulimic. She was anorexic by the time she was 15, and she battled with the disease all through college. Just 23 years old when she wrote the book, Hornbacher still admitted to battling every day with the disease. She now manages to keep down enough food to maintain a relatively normal weight and begin to repair all of the damage that was done to her organs throughout the years of her starvation.

Hornbacher is still not convinced that she will survive, but she has the desire to live, which is something she didn't possess for quite a while. The book is very moving, but is told in such a way that it is not full of self-pity, but is instead a brutally honest and open account of what an eating disorder can do to a person. In addition to this, it helps to show some of the things that can cause people to develop this kind of problem, such as family problems and society's insistence on being thin to be accepted.

I would definitely recommend that this book be read by anyone who wants a better understanding of eating disorders. Many people seem to think that an eating disorder is something that the person dealing with it can just control. All they have to do is eat more and they will be fine. Even though eating disorders have been around for a long time, many people still do not understand all of the complexities that come with them. Until more is researched and understood about eating disorders, those that suffer with them will continue to be misunderstood. Anyone who reads this book will help to contribute to the understanding that this disorder is not 'all in someone's head,' but is a very real affliction that requires understanding and help, not ridicule.

One group that should definitely read this book is middle and high school students. Girls tend to have more problems with eating disorders than boys do, but some boys also have this problem. All middle and high school students should read this book so that they understand more about the dangers of trying to be too thin. Many don't seem to realize all of the dangers to the organs and the rest of the body that can occur from prolonged starvation and vomiting. If an eating disorder continues too long, that damage can be unrepairable, and even someone who is actually working to eat more and get better cannot always be saved when the disorder has progressed this far.

There are many lessons and messages that Hornbacher tries to get across in her book, but the two main ones are that this disorder is very real and very painful, and that the recovery from this disorder can literally take a lifetime. Once the disorder is allowed to continue for very long at all, it becomes a pattern that is difficult to break, and many who have the disorder never break it, and die as a consequence.