"Millions of families are affected by eating disorders, which usually strike young women between the ages of fourteen and twenty. But current medical practice ties these families' hands when it comes to helping their children recover. Conventional medical wisdom dictates separating the patient from the family and insists that "it's not about the food," even as a family watches a child waste away before their eyes. Harriet Brown shows how counterproductive--and heartbreaking--this approach is by telling her daughter's story of anorexia. She describes how her family, with the support of an open-minded pediatrician and a therapist, helped her daughter recover using family-based treatment, also known as the Maudsley approach"--Cover

Foreword / Daniel le Grange -- Before : What I wish everyone knew -- Down the rabbit hole -- Home again, home again -- There will be cake -- Country of mental illness -- Trouble is now -- September -- In which we take on the insurance company, and lose -- Watching Kitty -- Crusts and crumbs -- Happy ending -- Epilogue: Relapse, recovery, renewal