What does it mean to be a wintergirl?

The phrase "wintergirls" is one that Anderson has invented in order to symbolize the destcructive nature of anorexia. Coldness becomes synonymous with illness and pain, and Cassie and Lia both suffer from being wintergirls. The following quotes display the use of this phrase within the text.

"We held hands when we walked down the gingerbread path into the forest, blood dripping from our fingers. we danced with witches and kissed monsters. We turned into wintergirls, and when she tried to leave, I pulled her back because I was afraid to be alone" (99).

"She wipes a snowflake off my cheek. 'You're not dead, but you're not alive, either. You're a wintergirl Lia-Lia, caught in-between two worlds. You're a ghost with a beating heart" (195).

"Would that be worse than the grown women who lived on our hall but didn't talk to us? Wintergirls who were twenty-five, thirty, fifty-seven years old, walking around in their eleven-year-old bone cages, empty caves with bleeding eyes dragging from one treatment to the next, always being weighed, never being enough. One day the wind will carry them off. Nobody will notice" (252).