The Best Little Girl in the World

This is an excellent book on anorexia nervosa. First off, it's written by a psychotherapist who specializes in eating disorders. Second, it turns out that he's also an excellent writer. The characters are very realistic, the events realistic, and the dangers realistic. The book points out that 9% of the girls who have anorexia nervosa end up dying from it.

There are a number of things that can set a girl off on the path towards anorexia. One of them is the never-ending emphasis our society places on thinness. The fashion models all appear ultra-thin. (Yet many of the photos on the front of the various style magazines have been "touched up" by computer to make the women appear even more "perfect" looking then they already are.

News report after news report attacks obesity and says how dangerous it is. Scores of ads are on tv, radio and in magazines for this or that product that is "absolutely guaranteed" to make you lose weight. One diet fad after another passes by. Even sexual magazines emphasize women who are thin (and almost always large-breasted).

Then there is the interaction between students, in particular, comparing themselves against each other, buying into the fashion/makeup craze and trying to become "popular." The result of all of this is a tremendous pressure on women in general and young girls in particular to "watch their weight."

Yet another source of pressure is discussed by this novel, and that is a remark made by an adult to a young girl. In this case 15-year-old Kessa is told by her ballet teacher that it she needs to stay "slim and firm", pointing out where she feels Kessa should lose some weight. That remark sets Kessa off on her own journey towards possible self-destruction.

Things start small then build and keep on building. She gets thinner and thinner and yet sees herself as never being thin enough.

She eats almost nothing, she forces herself to throw up, her grades at school drop and her parents don't know what to do. She is sent to a one psycho-therapist who turns out not to be well suited for her, and then finally is sent to one who treats girls who are that way.

Her condition continues to get worse at first, though, and she ends up in the hospital being force-fed through I.V. tubes. There's another girl in the hospital who also has anorexia nervosa and we learn a little about her behaviors, too.

This is a really well-done story, and it includes a lot of information on the disease itself. If you want to read a fictional book about anorexia, then this is the one you should read.

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