A Hungry Ghost

The New York Public Library hosted a reading by Kate Taylor, the editor of an anthology titled Going Hungry, which focuses on "desire, self-denial," and our shrinking appetites. On the first Monday in March, I braved a snowstorm in support of my former colleague, with whom I'd broken (low-calorie?) bread over discussions of body image and disordered eating and overeating. What distinguishes her book is that it gathers writers, authors, and journalists to address the topic and not, for example, embattled teen girls sporting red "ana" bracelets.

If ever there was a taboo subject, this would be it, and perhaps even more so in the black community, where conventional thinking has it that more is more once you step on the scale - and that the zaftig will be rewarded by longevity and male admiration. Real women have curves, right, not jutting rib cages? (At left, an image from designer Hedi Slimane's photo diary of Lindsay Lohan.) Yet increasingly I hear from chicks of colorful complexions who are anxious about their weight, staring down bottles of herbal appetite-killers and passing on dinner. In Tibetan Buddhism, the hungry ghost is depicted with a large, bloated stomach, gaping mouth, and a neck too small to pass food, a metaphor for those who can't grasp that to be full-filled is to go within. But going without, that nihilistic impulse to deny corporeal needs, ultimately just leaves you where you started...hungry.