Analysis Of Wasted: A Memoir Of Anorexia And Bulimia

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia is the life story of Marya Hornbacher. Marya became obsessed with her body image at a very young age, and as she grew older her battle with eating disorders, along with a few other disorders, only became harder to overcome. The dimensions of the multipath model describe Marya’s eating disorders and how they came to be. The biological and social dimensions easily go hand in hand when looking at Marya’s family. Marya’s mom, Judy, was an actress who never ate and did not speak much unless it was to comment on her daughter’s weight. Marya often went to the gym with her mom, while she watched women be lined up in order of thinness. Secondly, Marya’s father, Jay, had a habit of over eating, drinking and smoking.

Additionally, the psychological dimension is an important factor in Marya’s behavior with the eating disorders. By middle school, Marya began to wear makeup, dress older, and have many sexual interactions, especially if she could receive drugs or alcohol in return. Marya also went through a miscarriage at the age of fourteen. This is an example of behavioral undercontrol, where Marya’s personality characteristics are defiant, negative, and destructive as a whole. This kind of behavior is linked to the lack of social construct in her home and the constant numbing and avoiding of problems in her life, including with patterns of eating. Lastly, the sociocultural dimension of eating disorders is major in not just Marya’s case, but for most people who are battling the disorder. Many females who look at any form of entertainment, mostly modeling, will see extremely thin women and think that being skinny is the only way to look and feel beautiful. Marya watches her mother, a thin actress, and realizes she wants to be as thin as she is, beginning her troublesome

All I really knew about eating disorders is that it is common in the entertainment industry and amongst women and teens. I also thought there were only two eating disorders, Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa, but actually there are many different types of eating disorders that are all distributed among a spectrum. Before reading this book, I did not realize someone could have both Bulimia Nervosa and Anorexia Nervosa at the same time. I believed that someone usually just starves himself or herself and eats very little or they are always binging food and purging. Marya switched back and forth between the two ways to lose weight. One preconception I had a feeling was accurate was that it is a strenuous and lengthy process to recover from eating disorders. Eating disorders often go hand in hand with other mental disorders such as, in Marya’s case, substance abuse, major depression, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These disorders led to the habitual cycle of self-destruction. Marya went through six hospitalizations, one institutionalization, and relapse has been common all throughout her life. Furthermore, when she found out she was pregnant again, Marya threw herself down the stairs, leading to her PTSD. Because this is a memoir, Marya is telling her real stories of battling eating disorders, which is evidence that these are similar experiences that women