Peach Friedman’s exercise bulimia left her emaciated and in danger of heart failure-a fate that thousands of other young women could face as they struggle with this debilitating eating disorder
Most of the time, when she has a rare free evening to herself-in between book-club meetings, her weekly French lessons and the master’s degree in creative writing that she’s finishing up at California College of the Arts-Peach Friedman likes to kick back alone at her Palo Alto, Calif., home. “I’ll bake cookies, watch TV or read, call my old friends back East,” says the Charlottesville, Va., native. But every now and again, she gets the urge to break out of her homebody shell.
“I’m not necessarily a big ‘drink lots of cocktails and wear stilettos’ kind of girl,” Friedman admits. “But I do love an opportunity to put on a dress and some perfume and feel beautiful.” A simple sentiment, but one that, up until about two years ago, Friedman, 26, couldn’t imagine ever expressing.