Food Obsessions

Many characters in this novel deal with their emotional pain through food obsessions. Examples of characters who have food obsessions include Ani, Arthur, Nell, and Olivia. Their obsessions include overeating, binge eating, crash dieting, and anorexia.

Ani has a relationship with food that changes as her story progresses. It is Arthur who introduces Ani to food as a source of emotional comfort. After Olivia and Hilary steal Ani’s running shorts and put them on display at the school, Arthur takes Ani to his house where he feeds her. “Once the acid-flavored anxiety of what would become of me dissolved to reveal what had become of me, the hot new girl already washed up seven weeks into the semester, food had never tasted so good” (173).

This connection between food and comfort haunts Ani when she tries to slim down for her appearance on the documentary...