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

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U of Minnesota Press, 1994 - Abused women - 161 pages
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.
 

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Contents

1 Making a Way outa No Way
1
Culture Race Class and Sexuality
27
3 Ashes Thrown up in the Air
46
4 Hungry and Hurting
69
5 A Thousand Hungers
96
6 In the Mourning There Is Light
107
Biographical Sketches
129
Notes
137
Index
157
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