New Year’s Day, the first of the weight loss advertisements arrived: a press release for a new diet plan. Then came a flood of emailed anti-fat strategies; coupons for local health clubs; Google ads flashing “Lose 30 pounds in Weeks – No Diet.” And I haven’t even turned on the TV yet, where commercials for elliptical trainers, diet pills, and low-carb shake schemes will hold me hostage until I press the remote.

Forget weight loss and body sculpting. My New Year’s resolution is to learn how to eat normally. I’m not sure what exactly that is. Along with everyone else, I’ve been so indoctrinated with dieting and exercise tips, I’ve lost sight of health. But I'm not to be deterred.

They do it because they’re desperate. People are engaging in secret, shameful behaviors all for the sake of getting or staying thin.

Shortly after giving birth, Lauren, 35, would tell her husband that she was going to the grocery store late at night. There, she would buy bags of junk food, gorge in her car, and then make herself throw up in the parking lot. Her goal was to reach her pre-pregnancy weight. At all costs. The “cost” to Lauren was her relationship with her new baby, which she says she lost during the two years that her bulimia raged untreated.

"How tragic,” we say. But her story just scratches the surface.