Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders

GAINING: THE TRUTH ABOUT LIFE AFTER EATING DISORDERS is a well-written interesting hybrid of a book that is part memoir, part individual interview/reportage, part summary of existing research, all about the experience of having recovered from an eating disorder. I found it interesting particularly in how it addressed personality and temperament, how they relate to genetics and environmental factors. Liu's book, because it is both personal and researched, paints a vivid and rich portrait of individuals who have suffered and recovered from this particular illness. Liu's memoir of her own anorexia takes up the story of her life after her last memoir ends. Liu wrote Solitaire in her 20s after she recoverd from a serious period of restricting anorexia as a high school and college student. She writes of a moment when she decided she wanted a happier life and turned toward health. But GAINING isn't focused on her eating disorder, but on the life she lived afterwards that still bore features of someone with her particular former illness. The individual interviews Liu conducts to enrich her investigation of what her own experience as a recovered anorexic might mean support her thesis that while the eating disorder might stop, many of the concerns and fears continue and are "treated" in other ways. Liu interviews women who became workaholics, engaged in punishing exercise, kept their lives emotionally "clean." Commonalities and connections are made among recovered anorexics and among recovered bulimics that illustrate with personal narratives the findings that Liu focuses on from current research. Liu's treatment of the research on the topic is interesting and turns a corner in what I think of as the popular understanding of eating disorders (starlets who opine that they could use an eating disorder for a couple of days, etc.). Liu rejects a traditionally feminist position that environment and media messaging against women are primarily responsible for the disorders experienced by many women and men, though she treats these ideas respectfully and addresses how she does think they play a part in the experience. She expands on the thinking that "genetics loads the gun and enrivonment pulls the trigger" in terms of biological predisposition and experiential triggers for those who suffer from eating disorders by writing about the position that genetics creates the gun, environment loads it and extreme emotional experiences fire the ED bullet. Research is also used to demonstrate the commonalities of those who suffer from such disorders in terms of brain functioning and temperament. Recovered anorexics, for example, often have temperaments that also lead them to choose not to have children. Liu examines brain functioning in terms of how women with a history of eating disorders respond to a photo of cake vs. the brain activity charted in someone who has never suffered from such an illness (the anorexics accessed the parts of their brains of judgment and anx

I have a hx of anorexia nervosa since I was 15 years old (I am now 37). I have never gained this much insight into myself and the reasons behind my disorder as I did reading this book, even after years of inpatient and outpatient counseling! Great for anyone who has suffered, is suffering, or for families of eating diordered patients. Thank you, Aimee Liu!

I have read other books about eating disorders, as well as books written by people with disordered eating patterns but this has to be one of the better ones out there. Aimee herself was a sufferer and she also interviews other sufferers, but the interesting aspect she touches on about this disease is the genetic and similar personality traits that characterize sufferers. I found the book highly interesting and as a person who has/is suffering with anorexia and bulimia it really helped me to gain some insight into my own life.

As someone who is currently recovering from my fourth round of anorexia (I am now mid-thirties), reading this book is the first time I have been able to "connect the dots" and really understand why I do this. I have had some of the pieces before, but this book has given me a depth of understanding of myself that I've never had, as well as the comfort of knowing I'm not alone. Thank you to Ms. Liu for writing it.