Book Review: Life Without Ed

Anorexia nervosa is a disease that affects approximately eight million Americans. According to Stephanie Setliff, M.D., a psychiatrist at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, about one-third of those who acquire this disorder die from it, another one-third suffer with chronic illnesses such as organ failure or bone disease their entire life, and only about one-third eventually recover. A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders indicates that the mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times greater than the death rate of ALL other causes of death for females 15 to 24 years old.

One woman who has lived with, and finally conquered this frightening disease is Jenni Schaefer. She has written about her struggles with her eating disorder in the book, "Life Without Ed." Although this is a very serious subject, Schaefer manages to tastefully infuse a bit of humor into this account. She writes in such a way that it is a very easy and informative read, yet never loses the focus of the battle constantly being fought by victims of eating disorders.

She begins the introduction to her book, "Life Without Ed," by stating, "I have never been married, but I am happily divorced. Ed and I lived together for more than twenty years." She then follows up with an explanation of this contradiction:"[Ed] is not a high school sweetheart. Ed is not some creep that I started dating in college. And Ed is not a guy that I met in the supermarket checkout line (although he does hang out a lot in grocery stores). Ed's name comes from the acronym E.D.-as in eating disorder. Ed is my eating disorder."

In the beginning of the book, Schaefer tells of how her psychotherapist asked her to pull an extra chair up, then imagine her eating disorder was in it. He then asked her to talk to her eating disorder. She says she thought HE was the one who needed professional help, but went along with it. Before long, she was asking her eating disorder why it wanted to control her life, and why it wouldn't leave her alone. In that hour of therapy, she began to feel a slight separation from her eating disorder, and by the end of it, she was referring to it by a man's name, "Ed."

Schaefer states she has written this book with the eating disorder victim in mind. Before her recovery, she says that her thoughts were so consumed by food and weight, and her health so poor that she found it hard to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. Therefore, she wrote this book in "bite-sized, easily digestible portions," making it easier to stay focused on each small section. Most chapters are less than four pages long, and some are not even a full page. These are then divided into seven larger sections.

Nonetheless, this book has a lot of valuable testimony in it, as the author discusses how she repeatedly made progress in her recovery, relapsed, and picked herself up and continued in her recovery again. As she works through the book, she covers topics that other anorexia nervosa victims also tend to deal with, such as the difficulty in following the eating plan she was given, her relationships with men, understanding that what she saw in the mirror was a distorted image, negative thoughts, relapses, support groups, and many more subjects that affect anorexics.

Schaefer's psychotherapist, Thom Rutledge, also contributed to this book. At the end of each larger section, Rutledge has included some information and a series of exercises for the reader to perform. Most of these exercises are the same ones he had Schaefer perform while under his care. They are typically writing assignments of some kind, but geared to either awaken a certain understanding or help prevent a relapse.

There are some things that I didn't like about this book, but they are very minor. For example, at times, the chronology gets confusing. At the beginning of a chapter she may be in the midst of some crisis at some point on her road to recovery, but by the end of the page, she is writing from the present POV where she has fully recovered. In addition, the shortness of the chapters sometimes leads to a somewhat choppy story. And once in a great while, some things seem to be just a little contrived, as if it were added to make the story just a little more interesting.

As a first-hand account of what it's like to be a victim of an eating disorder, this book is very illuminating for those who can't understand how someone could just starve herself to death. I believe it could also be a very practical book for others trying to divorce Ed, and a comfort to them to read of someone else's struggle and ultimate victory over Ed. If you've ever wondered about the victims of this disease, or suffer from it yourself, I highly recommend this book.

Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too.
Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1st Edition, December 26, 2003
ISBN-13: 978-0071422987