Empty

This American Life editor Burton provides a deeply personal memoir of her adolescence and young adulthood spent hiding her alternating cycles of binge eating and anorexia. In her early teens, the author’s parents divorced and her life changed drastically, as she moved with her mother and younger sister from Michigan to Colorado. Burton, who describes herself as always having an uncomfortable relationship with food, began a secret life of compulsive eating and starving. She excelled academically in middle and high school, but often felt lonely and disconnected socially owing to her eating issues. As a freshman at Yale, the author hoped to reinvent herself as someone who was “good” with food. Unfortunately, the college experience only exacerbated her disorder. After graduation, Burton began a career in publishing and married her college boyfriend. She still struggled with disordered eating, and ultimately sought professional help.