Brave Girl Eating: A Family's Struggle with Anorexia

This was a helpful book for parents just learning about EDs. However, it is one person's experience and it doesn't touch on the different ways in which to deal with EDs, or that there are different types of EDs. Overall, good book to start your research and nice to read a parent's perspective.

It can be very helpful to read first-hand perosnal experience of a family struggling with a teen's eating disorder, and treating it with a family based therapy.

There are many things that I really loved about this book. However, there are also several things that annoyed and frustrated me, and that I think lessened the power of the book.THE GOOD: I thought it was a very well written, compelling tale of a mother's struggle with her daughter's anorexia, and a mother's perspective as her daughter and her family try to deal with this deadly disease. I learned a lot about anorexia without getting caught up in jargon or in any kind of "thinspriation" speak, which the author notes she made great efforts to avoid. And, most importantly, I think this is a fresh perspective that will be incredibly helpful to other families struggling with anorexia, and provide them with information about family-based therapy, which is still not as common as other (and according to the author, less effective) therapies. I picked up this book because the New York Times Magazine article the author initially wrote has always stuck with me, and I wanted to hear the larger story, and I'm glad I read both the article and the book. That said...THE BAD: I thought the author's agenda really got in the way of the book. She was clearly so angry at people who pushed treatment centers and blamed families that I didn't think she gave a fair discussion of those options and how they compare, especially for families who are not as available for full-time FBT as she and her husband were. I understand that this was a memoir and that she instinctively felt that treatment centers wouldn't be right for her daughter - and I would guess that she's right. But not every anorexic girl comes from a loving, intact family who has the emotional and financial resources to help their daughters the way the author did. If she's going to bring up scientific studies and discuss treatment options in depth, then I don't think it's fair (or accurate) to get on a soap box for FBT without also discussing its limitations. The only ones she mentions are that families might not be ready to deal with the rigors involved - which to me is doing exactly what she claims others do, i.e. blaming families. I was glad to learn about FBT, but I don't think that this is as fair a discussion of anorexia treatment as the author made it out to be, and that bothered me.My bigger complaint is about the ways in which her own eating issues and ambivalence toward food (as affected by her daughter's anorexia) influenced the book. The number of times Brown complained about how most of the books in the bookstore or food in the grocery store focued on trying to help people lose weight, or flippantly remarked that society was "obsessed" with obesity trivialized the very real struggle so many people have with overeating and the health problems associated with it. Yes, our society has a screwed-up relationship with food. But just because it affected Brown's family by bringing anorexia into the home and affects others by bringing in obesity doesn't make Brown's struggles worse than families with an obesity problem. And this country IS in the middle of an obesity epidemic that affects all of us, if only in the form of higher health care costs. I know this is a book about anorexia, but I was truly insulted by the way Brown treated people's worries about weight as if they were just some by-product of a thin-obsessed culture. She seems to think that if all of the diet books disappeared so too would the country's food issues. As anyone who has read anything about food policy (or even just a few chapters of a Michael Pollan book) knows, it's not that simple. Brown didn't have to denigrate others' problems in order to discuss her own. And, in fact, I think discussing the connection between obesity and anorexia in a way that wasn't so angry would have been really interesting. Why are we becoming a country of such extremes? What's the right way to change that? All those issues get completely ignored, if not outright dismissed, in this book.Finally, at the end of the book, I thought Brown's discussion of Kitty's athletic pursuits was disappointing. I understand that Brown's main concern is making sure Kitty avoids an anorexia relapse, but I thought that her discussion of how athletics triggers anorexia was cursory at best. I would have really liked it if Brown could have discussed some more of the issues involved, and possibly talked about the difference in various sports and sporting cultures. I also wondered why Brown never talked to Kitty's cycling coaches for help as watchdogs. Why does Brown seem to think that Kitty should avoid all athletic pursuits simply because athletics help maintain weight? They also can provide cameraderie, teach you about yourself and ensure that your body remains healthy throughout your life. And not every sport encourages anorexic behavior the way gymnastics does.So, while I felt this book was interesting and insigtful in many ways, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for information about FBT or treatment options for anorexia, in the end I thought that Brown let her hangups and her anger get in the way of telling a powerful tale in full.

Reading Harriet Brown's excellent book I couldn't help thinking of The Exorcist -- in which the innocent child Regan is possessed by a demon, spewing obscenities, repelling all attempts to cast out the evil force that is threatening her life. Just as inexplicable and life-threatening is the sudden possession of 14-year-old Kitty Brown by the demon of anorexia which spawns self-hatred and the uncontrollable urge to punish herself through the withholding of food.When I titled my review "myth-busting" I meant that, before reading this book I thought of eating disorders as the neuroses of the hyperprivileged raised by mothers who bought into the "a woman can't be too thin or too rich" credo. But Harriet Brown is grounded, well-informed; her family is functional and loving; the message she and her husband have always given to their daughters is of acceptance of the full range of healthy body sizes. So when Kitty starts limiting her diet to a few leaves of lettuce and a precisely-counted number of grapes, wasting away before her family's eyes, erupting into tirades that seem voiced by some alien within her that calls her a pig, disgusting, worthless, Harriet is mystified and fearful.Despite inept therapists and obstructive insurance companies, and books that perpetuate outdated and downright damaging information, Brown rallies her journalistic discipline and her lioness-mother heart to save her daughter's life, and, by the book's end, has come to a place of hope. Not complete, easy triumph -- but hope. Her research leads her to FBT - Family Based Therapy, a grueling but effective treatment for anorexia that requires a family member to stay with the anorexic victim at all times, patiently coaxing her through every meal (which can take hours), making sure she doesn't purge afterward, helping to establish a zone of safety around the truly terrifying ordeal that eating has become.It is amazing that this family weathered the trial of a mentally-ill family member and still stayed together, loving and supportive. Little Emma, ten at the onset of her sister's ordeal, is a voice of wry and often funny sanity. Jamie, Harriet's husband, doesn't understand, but remains a stand-up husband and dad. Kudos to this family. The book is a page-turner, and I would imagine a lifesaver for families and individuals experiencing this bizarre kind of hell.

Very imformative both medically and from a parents perspetive

Although this is a sad and difficult illness to cope with, the family will ultimately be on trial, one day at a time. Worth reading.

Must read if your child is struggling with this terrible disease.

An emotional journey.