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Home › Articles › Eating Disorders › Eating Disorders in the Spotlight

Eating Disorders in the Spotlight

An Interview With Eve Eliot

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iP: Is there another book planned?
EE: I am in the process of writing the third book. It will be a sequel to Insatiable and Ravenous and continue the stories of the girls, the guys and the therapy gang. The third book will have more surprises. It will have new bands and lyrics, of course, but it will also have some other new stuff.

iP: Your books have a lot to do with self-image, among other things, with beauty or people's experience of the lack of it. What IS beauty?
EE: When societies were less highly technologized and more agricultural, beauty was whatever signified the ability of a member of a species to survive and bear progeny. In a culture connected to the cycles of the earth, for example, a woman with wide hips and some extra weight on her body would define the standard of beauty, because that kind of female body is more likely to carry a baby to term in a famine and more likely to survive to fulfill the tasks of mothering until the child is no longer dependent.

Even in our own society, what is considered beautiful still has some connection to the biologically significant features of species survival. For example, small, symmetrical, Barbie-like facial features are considered beautiful. This is because as people age, facial features get larger and the two sides of the face become less and less symmetrical. So small symmetrical features indicate youthfulness, and that is what males will be attracted to naturally, as younger eggs are more likely to produce strong offspring. Strong secondary sex characteristics such as good hair are considered beautiful since healthy hair signifies adequate hormone supplies, pointing to the ability to become pregnant. Men with big muscles can grow or capture more food for their offspring and can protect their families, so a well-muscled body is considered beautiful.


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