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Regaining Your Self
Book

Regaining Your Self

Breaking Free from the Eating Disorder Indentity

Ira M. Sacker
Hyperion, 2007

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Editorial Rating

9

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  • Applicable

Recommendation

Take an appearance-fixated society, add an individual with an obsessive personality, a dash of anxiety and a measure of perfectionism, and you have the perfect recipe for an eating disorder. Dr. Ira Sacker has been treating people with eating disorders for more than two decades and thoroughly understands the dynamics of this devastating condition. He’s cooked up a compassionate, interactive therapeutic approach to healing that reaches past the boundaries of food, weight and calories. People suffering from eating disorders become their disease, focusing solely on it as their identity, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The author’s premise is that the way to usurp this “eating disorder identity” is to develop a real, healthier identity based on discovering and pursuing your passions. If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, getAbstract suggests that you will find hopeful information in this book. It certainly serves up food for thought.

Summary

Introducing Eating Disorders

Having an eating disorder is not a choice. So how does it start? Ironically enough, many eating disorders begin with a person’s desire to be healthier. People wish to lose a few pounds and get in shape, so they begin dieting and exercising. At first, their friends reinforce their efforts by complimenting them. The physical changes in their bodies are emotionally gratifying. But for a few people, particularly those with tendencies toward perfectionism and anxiety, the dieting takes over. They begin to restrict their caloric intake more and more, and increase the time they spend exercising. Weight loss calms their anxiety. Semi-starvation creates changes in metabolism and brain chemistry that generate a “natural high.” And, an eating disorder is born.

Different Types of Disorders

The name “eating disorder” covers several different conditions. Anorexia nervosa is marked by a weight loss of more than “15% of the normal body weight for someone of the same age and height.” Besides being thin, a person with anorexia nervosa manifests other symptoms, including: “fatigue, hair loss, brittle nails, black circles under the eyes, low blood ...

About the Author

Ira M. Sacker, M.D., is the co-author of the definitive book about anorexia, Dying to Be Thin, and treats eating-disorder patients in New York. He is clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the New York University Medical Center and the Bellevue Hospital Medical Center.

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