Girard (Stanford U.) views anorexia as a disease of mimetic desire, or desire imitated from a model of what is seen in society, which develops into a competition. In this brief musing, he addresses the problems with modern theories of eating disorders, such as psychoanalysis, Marxism, and feminism; the role of exercise; how society breeds competition; the history of competitive dieting; how people distort ideas of weight from the past; and the culture of anorexia that exists. The book was originally published as Anorexie et désir mimétique in 2008 and has been translated by Mark R. Anspach, who along with Laurence Tacou, talks with Girard about the topic in the concluding interview section. There is no index. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)