Ms Waldman failed to touch on the main reason anorexia is becoming more prevalent in all parts of society. Like footbinding and lead-based facepowder being pathetically scrawny signifies that a woman is not only so wealthy she can avoid physical labour, but that she is willing to undergo a great deal of personal discomfort to conform to another's wishes. All this makes her good wife or girlfriend material for the self-obsessed robber barons who sit at the top of the social pyramid. As long as we live in a society where the elite find fluffy females desireable, women will emulate these traits in the hopes of moving up. Dangerous beauty practices don't go away because women get together and decide to love their bodies. They disappear because average joes and janes come to find the class differences they signify intolerable. Making half-hearted comments on beauty coming in all sizes while secretly hating your belly won't change a thing. Fighting to make America a true meritocracy will.

my arguement against her was that she choses to participate in utter gluttoney and then complains about it, blaming everyone else.

ALL the control is in her OWN hands yet she refuses to acknowledge it. She blames genetics and others blame culture, but after a certain point, WE are respoinsible for our own choices. That is what I find grossly arrogant and selfish.

SHE is old enough to know that she is in control of her own choices and to keep blaming the magazines or her hosts is immature.

sure we all want to be pretty, but most of us accept responsibility for our own realities (my jeans are a little tight because I've been going easy on the exercise, not because my neighbors force fed me butter), and do not think our thinness is more important than the greater human condition.

It's fantastic that many of the previous writers are so liberated and mature that they've stopped worrying about their weight and attractiveness and all that other shallow, immature cultural baggage that makes the rest of us unliberated, shallow, obsessive losers. I think that what the author needs is precisely these personal attacks on her character and intelligence (not to mention her feminist credentials) in order to get over her deep self-loathing.

ahem. sarcasm aside, I really sympathize with the author and wish that the rest of the respondents could be a bit more supportive. Self-hatred is a very difficult thing to overcome. Not only that, but she didn't say she wants to be calista flockhart or lara flynn boyle, just that she's very conscious that she doesn't feel good about her weight. I'd have to see a picture to really get an idea if her sense of self is warped but I don't think that her attitude is unusual. I know a LOT of women over and under 40 who are concerned about their weight. If you're overweight and you've made peace with your body and feel good about it, FINE. BULLY FOR YOU. Don't turn around and tear down the women who happen not to share your love for a few extra pounds. You wouldn't do that to a woman who decided to sing the praises of being morbidly obese.

I happen to love being in shape. I feel (like one of the letter writers) depressed, anxious, unhealthy, lethargic and less mentally sharp when I'm overweight and not exercising or eating right. The writer may need to learn to separate "health" and "weight" but generally, eating right and exercising and wanting to be a few pounds lighter isn't anything I think is bad. Americans ARE overweight, we DO overindulge, we DO NOT exercise enough. Why is acknowledging this bad!? why is it sooooo evil and unfeminist to want to feel and look attractive!?

oh sure, I'd love to be thin and rich and live on the beach.

But I'm not.

And I DO NOT cry about it.

I opted out of the *thin* scam and am happier. That are FAR more important things to worry about.

Women writing in that, despite their intelligence, they are still tortured by culture's demands that they be thin are just making up excuses for being self-obsessed and arrogant.

If you ever really thought about the lives of most people in this world, about how hungry and cold they are, you'd stop caring AT ALL about how thin you are and you'd do something to help people who really are suffering.

The self-obsession of claiming some sort of mental anguish from being a few pounds heavier than Kate Moss is arrogant and self-obsessed. Claims that your 32 inch waist is more important than a warm place to sleep for a young child is disgusting

this author should read the Broadsheet section of this site and raise her feminist consciousness! We want to enlighten our lives, not listen to some bulimic princess describe her gluttoney and desire to barf it all up.

Exercise. eat a balanced diet. Stop obsessing about yourself and realize there are people who are not so blessed as to literally stuff themselves stupid and then COMPLAIN about it.

Why don't you eat a balanced, modest (yet enjoyable) meal and give the value of the rest to a homeless shelter.

I'm sick of these princess women bemoaning about such shallow self-obsessed subjects.

Help me make this a better world!

Ayelet speaks to and for me in this article. I am almost 55 and if I could reclaim the amount of time and energy I have spent obsessing about food and my weight, my life would seem decades longer. I do not worry about my daughter, and I do not research anorexia, but what really hits home for me in this writing is the damage we do to ourselves.

We may choose to blame genetics, the media, our ethnicity or other factor. The tragedy here is that we waste precious time thinking and suffering about this issue.

I have read many times in many places that "losing weight doesn't make you happy". That is a load of crap. It is easier to live in this country when you are thin, and I for one, am happy when I can fit into and look good in anything I want. My behaviour changes when I am thin; when I am overweight I limit my social contacts and my activities. I get depressed. This is simply the truth for me.

I am not an intellectual lightweight (pun intended) nor a shallow person. But let's be real. Life is easier (and better) for those women who are not fat.