She attended Overeaters Anonymous, rigorously followed all the recommended steps, and the summer she was 16 went to Israel as a svelte size 6, for the first time in her life “the girl whom the other girls hated.” Boys swarmed around, and she had her first sexual experience, but back at home she started binge-eating, and the weight returned. But Lerner, already convinced she would never have a boyfriend, was desperate to look good and get slim. Her mother, in deep denial, never mentioned the dead sister and didn’t pressure the adolescent Lerner to lose weight instead, she pointed out heavy women who dressed well. The second girl in a family that had lost a daughter at the age of two, Lerner ( The Forest for the Trees, not reviewed) found consolation in eating for the fact that she was a good student but not popular. Another graphic dispatch from the food wars, as poet, editor, and now literary agent Lerner details the insidious effects of compulsive eating on the body and psyche.
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