A friend and fellow food addict called the other day to lament his latest lost eating battle and I asked him to tell me what had happened. But when he started by telling me how he’d been feeling that morning, I interrupted.

I didn’t want to know about his feelings, or the argument he’d had with his wife, or about the crack in the sidewalk he’d stepped on. I just wanted to know, specifically, what he’d eaten that was causing his agita.

The theorizing has become reality: In July, a round of commentary (including mine) swelled after researchers suggested that foster custody might be preferable to bariatric surgery as a remedy for a child's severe obesity.

If you've read "Fat Boy Thin Man," you know about Acorn Food Dependency Recovery Services. Chapter 6, titled "Itinerant rehab," is based on my spending five days in Acorn's treatment program, based that week at a rented vacation chalet somewhere in southern Indiana. Acorn has also conducted its programs in Illinois, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, as well as in Iceland and Canada, and I'm probably missing a few, too.

Welcome to the latest round of “10 words or less,” in which I ask brief questions and request brief answers. Today’s subject is a NEDA Navigator, in which NEDA is the National Eating Disorder Association and navigators are laymen who’ve come through an eating disorder, either personally or familially, and now help others. Remember, please: No counting! 10 words is a goal, not a rule, and besides, let’s see you do it.

Name Vic Avon
Age 29
Residence Brick Township, N.J. 
Author “My Monster Within: My Story,” published in May 2010.
What your disorder was like “Very extreme, very deadly, a classic case of anorexia.”
When you were last active “I stepped into a hospital [University Medical Center, Princeton, N.J.] March 11, 2008.”
Can you recall a low point? “It was so bad that I prayed every night that I wouldn’t wake up in the morning.”

Here's another excerpt from Barbara Kingsolver's 2007 book, "Animal Vegetable Miracle."

Grocery money is an odd sticking point for U.S. citizens, who on average spend a lower proportion o our income on food than people in any other country, or any heretofore in history. In our daily fare, even in school lunches, we broadly justify consumption of tallow-fried animal pulp on the grounds that it's cheaper than whole grains, fresh vegetables, hormone-free dairy, and such. Whether on school boards or in families, budget keepers may be aware of the health tradeoff but still feel compelled to economize on food — in a manner that would be utterly unacceptable if the health risk involved an unsafe family vehicle or a plume of benzene running through a school basement. It's interesting that penny-pinching is an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains. [Page 115]

As a compulsive eater and food addict in recovery for a very long time, these issues are mine in degrees greater than the general population, even if you'd think that my experience shoulda learned me better by now. Good nutrition and healthy ingredients are bywords not only of my personal health but of my professional standing, but I still bee-line for the reduced-price cart at my farm stand.

I was conversing the other day with my autodidact pal, Ron, when we stuck on a point about eating: He considers "food addiction" and "compulsive eating" to be the same thing, and I don't.

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, I published an interview I did with Zack Jordan, whom I met when he reached out to me on Facebook after reading my book. He told me he was a "gay gainer," someone who tries to gain mondo weight because he thinks it would fulfill him.

This morning, I got this from him, which I'm sharing with his permission:

I point you toward dullsubjects.com, where proprietor Scott Davis has filed the first part of his "Confessions of a compulsive eater." This excerpt should tell you that he and I are of an ilk:

At my peak weight in 2006, I rented a small house in rural Pennsylvania. My nearest friend was a 30 minute drive west, and I telecommuted for work. My friend visited sometimes, once commenting that the house smelled like a hamster cage.

Connecticut-based insurer CIGNA is about to embark on a seven-month series of free telephone seminars to help people better understand eating disorders.

The first is next Tuesday, and will feature Stacie McEntyre, executive director of the Carolina House residential eating disorders treatment center.