Michelle Lelwica, a professor of religion at Concordia College and the author of The Religion of Thinness, observes:

For many, the prospect of a “good” body comes to function as a kind of “ultimate purpose” that gives their lives personal meaning while connecting them to a much wider cultural devotion to thinness
This devotion is implicitly supported by certain religious ideas and narratives. Consider, for example, the story of Eve. Remember what she does to unleash sin into the world? She eats. Throughout Christian history, this mythical incident fostered a view of female appetites as untrustworthy and women’s bodies as shameful. Again and again, church fathers returned to the story of Eve to find evidence that women are more carnal than men, and thus more prone to fall into temptation, and therefore in more need of regulation and salvation.