How silly people were to eat. They thought they needed food for energy, but they didn't. Energy came from will, from self-control.

She'd lost two more pounds. A picture of the models she'd cut out of the magazine flashed through Kessa's mind. And the winner is... seventy-three!

Repetition brings familiarity, and familiarity is the opposite of the unknown.

Soon I'll be thinner than all of you, she swore to herself. And then I'll be the winner. The thinner is the winner.

She began to be reassured by these pains, tangible symbols of her success in becoming thinner than anyone else. Her only identity was being "the skinniest." She had to feel it.

Self-mutilation is a frightening barrier that keeps us from seeing a person who is lost, in pain, and in desperate need of help.

From the newsstands a dozen models smiled up at her from a dozen magazine covers, smiled in thin-faced, high-cheekboned agreement to Kessa's new discovery. They knew the secret too. They knew thin was good, thin was strong; thin was safe.