“That meeting is where I first learned magical thinking. Through sheer force of will, these women intended to break their bodies like wild horses, starve them into submission, and, in so doing, attain the dazzling lives of thin women. They stayed hungry, forever famished, but were never quite thin enough to realize the potential and promise that would deliver them to the world promised in weight loss commercials and daytime talk shows, morning news and women’s magazines, promised by friends and mothers. They were not devout enough, and stayed soft with their original sin.”