Stick Figure: A Dairy of My Former Self

Summary:

The book Stick Figure is about the author Lori Gottlieb, who is now 30 years old, discovering her journals she wrote when she was eleven years old. She decided to write the book since the diary that she found was about herself being diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. She uses her name as the little girl in the book who is precocious, strogwilled preteen who enjoys chess, being unique, and getting straight A's in school, yet who is lonely and desperate to fit in and be popular. Lori's diarys are flled with entries on obervations on adults such as teacher, parents, realatives, medical personnel, and even a television star she meets name Jaclyn Smith. Lori is surrounded by thin women or children. Every female she comes in contact with our on diets, counting calories, and avoids desserts. For these females she comes in contact with are adults who are anti-obesity, but super thin. Lori is taken out of school one day to go on a family trip to Washington, D.C. She decides to repell against her parents and her body by skipping meals and dieting. She gets the attention she craves from her parents and school classmates. Ther classmates admire her weight loss and ask for her advice on how to lose weight. Lori's parents gets really worried when she lost so much weight that they put her into the hospital. She becomes depressed, dehydrated and lonely. She attempts to run away and
makes a sucide gesture to herself. After seeing doctors for her problem and the talk with Jacklyn Smith, she finally sees herself for what she had become--an stick figure.

Relation to Class:

In Chapter 8, Motivation and Emotion, we learned about Anorexia Nervosa is known as self-starvation-induced vomiting, excessive exercise, and laxative use that results in weight loss. Most of the people who suffer from anorexia are young females. Most Anorexia people feel hungry, and may obsessed with food and its prepartion, yet the refuse it. It is estimated that 4 to 30 percent of those suffering severe anorexia eventually die of starvation. Lori, "Stick Figure", could have ended dieing of starvation. She refuse to eat alot because she want to be thin. The apperarnce of anorexia has been attributed to a combination of factors, including genetic predispositions, biochemical imbalances, social influences, and psychological characteristics. In Lori's case she was not a good role model for her classmates. They were wanting to be thin just like her. Drugs, hospitalization, and psychotherapy are al used to treat anorexia.