This entire article about food is just indictive of the stupid obsession that women today are suppose to believe in. I am a 45 year old woman who believes that the idea of anorexia is a modern day idea of rebellion. Most anorexics come from good families, they are by and large well off, these girls are indulged and babyed throughout their whole lives. You look throughout history, there was no anorexia, hell people just wanted to survive. My mother grew up during World War II in Germany, even today she does not throw away any food period, because there were times when she had nothing to eat. The whole idea of someone starving themself on purpose is just ridiculous. She taught her two daughters to eat when they were hungry. Self hatred is just stupid. My whole family is not overweight, nor do we obsess about what we eat, because we do everything in moderation. I think it would be great if a columinist actually wrote the truth, and stop enabling these entitled people. Sincerely, Stephanie Richmond

i think what rankles most salon readers about Ayelet is that she is a liberal feminist turned mother and wife. Two things that seem to be at odds with one another. When she breaches the issues of our day from a very 'my life, my world' perspective; it's almost too close, too real. She brings up the hidden dilemmas in all our every day lives, the ones we fear to see. I look at Nicole Ritchie with disgust, as the rich white girl starving herself to be part of the hollywood 'scene'. Yet, I know what disgust me most about her is that I was there at one point too; when I was in college I had starved and excercised myself of 40 pounds, down to an emaciated 90 pound frame. I wasn't rich, I wasn't suburban, I wasn't white, I wasn't even an out and out anorexic. I didn't need an intervention to come back to real life, it just took time. But there is no denying that for the better part of two or three years it wasn't a prestigious university, or a multitude of extra-curricular activities that ruled my life- it was food, always at the back of my mind as I went about my day to day. So I commend Ayelet a thousand times over for bringing up the food demon in us all, and for having the courage to face him so openly.

Reading Waldman's piece left me anxious. I'm 31 and have a pretty healthy physical self-image; it was hard to read her self-loathing, and to know so many of my friends struggle with those issues as well.

I think any woman raised in America has to grapple with this (and I do think it's a feminist issue); I don't have any easy answers, but I would like to suggest two books that helped me understand myself with compassion and even some humor:

When You Eat In Front Of The Refridgerator, Pull Up A Chair

by Geneen Roth

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

by Becky W. Thompson

Happy eating to all,

Tory L. Davis

I am not a regular Salon reader. I found my way to Waldman's piece from outside. Having now read the responses to her latest column, as well as all of her previous columns, I have to say that as impressed as I am by Waldman's writing, I'm so disgusted by the negative reactions of Salon readers that I doubt I'll be back.

I won't bother with Salon's seemingly inexhaustible supply of savants dismayed by the alarming realization that a columnist might--can you imagine?--attempt to write in a way that is deliberately provocative. Thank God we've got no rich tradition or history of that in America! Ditto the "who cares about the problems of rich white people" crowd, whose penning of such elaborately outraged letters calls into question their own argument (and guilty sympathies). But has any of you narcissistic pots-calling-the-kettle-black noticed that in, in addition to her more personal columns, the woman has repeatedly and frequently addressed many neglected and unpopular causes in her columns, from the rights of women prisoners to Medicare? No, because those columns, which seem to have barely drawn any letters at all, either inconveniently don't fit your preconceived notion of "Crazy Ayelet" or else they vainly attempt to lift your myopic gazes out of the tiny little orbit of your own navels. It's only when she holds up a mirror to your own life that you realize you don't like what you see!

I'm amazed at how self-revelatory are the letters of the people who berate Waldman for being too self-revelatory--in particular her male critics, whose ripostes rarely amount to more than "Shut up, bitch!"--and even more amazed by the total absence of reaction from these same readers when Waldman enlists their attention and sympathy to people less fortunate, less familiar, less like them.

Congratulations to all the women who are completely happy with themselves all the time. It's great that you're doing everything right. I'm sure you have very rich inner lives.

For me, being a human in this world is a bit more complicated. Of course a moderate diet with regular exercise is ideal. Of course we should be charitable and kind and hardworking and floss regularly and pay our bills on time and keep a clean house and read Chekhov and shave our legs consistently and a million other things. But I'm pretty sure that the day I actually managed to do everything right, the Lord would return and totally bump my big news to below the fold.

I believe that we must all "embrace our crazy" - we should acknowledge our imperfection and our pesky human frailty and laugh about it whenever possible. I think Ayelet's article speaks to the crazy in her life, and I applaud her for sharing it with us.

Nothing to add on the weight-obsession issue.

Rather, the thing that struck me is Waldman's statement that "the only thing I can think of that consumes more of my day than fat-phobic freakouts is reading."

Four children (plus their homework!) and she spends the majority of her day reading and freaking out?

I'm not one to judge... but I do know what life is like with four children and I just find the way she is prioritizing her time.... sad.