‘Famished’ Explores the Link Between Purity Culture and Diet Culture

IN THE EARLY 2000s, Christian women were flooded with commentary about female bodies, both from secular and religious camps. A societal fixation on weight filled tabloid and magazine covers in grocery stores. Pastors preached against premarital sex by comparing teenage bodies to dirty water.

“So many sermon illustrations compared my body to food waiting to be consumed by men,” writes Anna Rollins in her new memoir, Famished. Rollins, who grew up in a white Appalachian fundamentalist Christian community, situates cultures of diet and sexual purity on the same continuum.