"At age 9 I was overweight and a pediatrician suggested my parents put me on a diet. Within three months I was back to a healthy weight, but I started hearing a voice that, every time I ate, would tell me: be careful, you could get fat." It is from this experience that 'Corpo libero' (Add) was born, the investigative book by journalist Eugenio Giannetta presented at Pordenonelegge.
"I didn't want to write a memoir, but an investigation," Giannetta explained, having gathered testimonies from experts, patients and family members to explore above all male anorexia, which is still rarely discussed. "I was never hospitalized for pathological anorexia, but during adolescence I never felt comfortable looking at my body."
Among the topics addressed are body dysmorphia, bigorexia, and the role of social media, family and stigma. "I came across cases of people who slipped from healthy eating into a disorder because healthy eating itself became an obsession." In males, he noted, the distress can also manifest as "a fixation on muscles and body fat."
Giannetta also cited the figure of approximately three million people with eating disorders in Italy, and the words of Stefano Tavilla, president of the Fiocchetto Lilla Foundation: "Those figures don't take into account that family members are also affected — the lives turned upside down are far greater in number." "The young people I interviewed," he concluded, "told me that during their worst periods they pushed people and friends away: a form of shame that one cannot help but feel."
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