When Mallary Tenore Tarpley was 11 years old, her mother died from breast cancer. Her father, who was reeling from his wife's death and at a loss to guide his daughter through puberty, gave Tarpley a subscription to a teen magazine.

Instead of finding helpful advice about her changing body, Tarpley saw models with big hair and emaciated figures. In a school health class, Tarpley and her classmates were lectured about their food choices, so she began eliminating what she saw as "unhealthy" foods. Then she reduced portion sizes, reasoning, in her grief, that if she stayed small she could keep her mother close. That quickly spiraled into severely restricting her food intake.

"I found that calorie counts gave me some semblance of control in the aftermath of my mother's death; I couldn't cont

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