“Obesity is one of the chief symptoms of neurosis in the Western world. The millions of dollars spent on research, diets, and exercise spas attest to the futility of our efforts to cope with it. Thinness has become a mania tending to focus the neurosis on food, but the roots of the problem remain diseased. Many thousands of anorexic girls, starving and running themselves to collapse, are denying the traditional female role, preferring to regress into childhood. Many thousands of their fat sisters are in the equally agonizing throes of a slow process of destruction. Both are in a blood pact with Death.”