For Haywood in "How Body Modification Ended the War Against My Body," what is the connection between body modification and eating disorders? Between...

The
link between body modification and recovery from eating disorders and surviving sexual assault
is that they are all intrinsically physical, corporeal concepts. The author also refers to
people who have a disability or a long-standing illness using body modification "as a
vehicle for healing" (2).

Because the body is the site of trauma from
sexual assault and eating disorders, the author reasons in this article that body modification
is a way to use compassion to reclaim that site. The link, for the author, is that eating
disorders and sexual assault are attacks on the body, while body modification is a way of
exploring the body "in a loving way" (2).

In addition to
exploration, the author also details how body modification helps her to define her body. The
author tells us that outside forces have tried to define her body and that body modification is
her way of defining it for herself and on her "terms" (2) and not on the terms of the
media or the men who hurt her.