and if we're lost, then we are lost together Today the New York Times Magazine has a really good - but heartbreaking - piece about a family's struggle with their 14-year-old anorexic daughter. They opt to try a family-based treatment plan that basically entails forced feeding, but through patient coaxing. Seems timely because of that model who just died and Kate Bosworth wandering around with her skeleton hanging out. It's a bit long, but if you have the time, read it over here. An excerpt:

On Day 2 of refeeding Kitty, our younger daughter, Lulu, turned 10. We had cake, a dense, rich chocolate cake layered with raspberry filling — one of Kitty's favorites. Of course she refused it. I told her that if she didn't eat the cake, we'd go back to the hospital that night and she would get the tube. I hated saying this, but I hated the prospect of the hospital more. The tube felt like the worst thing that could happen to her, though of course it was not. Five minutes after Kitty was born, I fed her from my own body. Now the idea of forcing a tube down her throat, having a nurse insert a "bolus" every so often, seemed a grotesque perversion of every bit of love and sustenance I'd ever given her.

She sat in front of the cake, crying. She put down the fork, said her throat was closing, said that she was a horrible person, that she couldn't eat it, she just couldn't. We told her it was not a choice to starve. We told her she could do nothing until she ate — no TV, books, showers, phone, sleep. We told her we would sit at the table all night if we had to.

Still, I was astonished when she lifted the first tiny forkful of cake to her mouth. It took 45 minutes to eat the whole piece. After she'd scraped the last bit into her mouth, she lay her head on the table and sobbed, "That was scary, Mommy!"

Oh, and speaking of food, join our potato thread over here.  | ¶ 12:40 p.m.