Akiko's Control

Since being introduced to Akiko in My Year of Meats and learning that she has this problem of throwing up her dinner, I keep wondering whether or not it's intentional. As the story goes along, we see that she has a problem with keeping meat down, and we immediately feel sorry for her when her husband insists that she makes the same meat dishes that are being promoted on My American Wife!. We can imagine that meat just doesn't agree with her frail body, and therefore just rejects it, but I can't help but wonder if there isn't some form of control that she has over the situation. She is obviously depressed, and the thought of her having an eating disorder isn't very far fetched to me. She has a husband who controls more or less every aspect of her life, and she doesn't seem to have any friends. She doesn't have a very strong motivation to take control of her life or undermine her husband's assumed authority over her. Throwing up her food seems to be the only thing that brings her some form of comfort, even though it's causing her body to waste away and her menstrual cycles to dry up. She doesn't seem opposed to the idea of having a baby, but doesn't exactly long for one either, like Jane did. Maybe this is the only part of her marriage that she could possibly have some form of control over, and so she keeps on throwing up so she won’t gain enough weight to get her periods back. The doctor she visited even told her that her bad attitude was probably to blame. As much as I hate the fact that this would play right into "John's" views of his wife and his blaming her for all their strife, maybe this contains a grain of truth. Another thing that plays into this idea is that Akiko got her period back after she started keeping the meat down which only happened after her husband insisted that she never be in the bathroom with the door closed. She no longer had the privacy; her indulgence was no longer comforting once her secret was out.
Having said this, I certainly don't blame her for wanting to save something for herself, even if it's an unhealthy eating disorder. As the reader, I want her to do something more productive, like kick her husband in the junk and leave his alcoholic ass, but here is where I imagine cultural views and gender roles get in the way of Akiko seeing any way out. So she stays, holding onto this little secret, that unfortunately doesn't remain a secret for long.
This is all just speculation, and for all I know I could be way off base. However, I'm curious to know if anyone else wondered the same thing while they were reading?

Alternate Ending to HappinessTM

When Edwin went in search of the real Tupak Soiree, he would be led to Paradise Flats and find Jack’s trailer to be a hub for a handful of nerdy looking gentlemen surrounded by very expensive looking computers and technological equipment. Edwin would learn that Jack McGreary was actually a very wealthy man who owned the whole town of Paradise Flats, but became extremely reclusive after he was abducted by aliens right out of his La-Z-Boy. He was sent back to Earth once they coerced him into helping them take over the planet. McGreary secretly hired a team from NASA to come out and help him communicate with the aliens so he could send information and take orders from them. What I Learned On the Mountain turned out to be the work of aliens who decided it would be easier to mount a global takeover if Earth’s inhabitants were subdued into happiness, and the whole thing was relayed through Jack. Once Edwin found out what was going on, he would have to be sworn to secrecy, and join their ranks if he wanted to live through the end of humanity. Reluctantly, and without any real intent on keeping his word, Edwin would agree. In a last effort to try to get the world back to the state it was in before What I Learned On the Mountain, Edwin would write How to Be Miserable, According to Tupak Soiree, and use his old office to get it published. The book would be a best-seller, and the nation would begin to come down from its happiness high. In the meantime, the aliens would have found a far more inhabitable planet elsewhere in the universe (a place without pollution and global warming taking its toll), and abandon their plans for global domination of Earth. As souvenirs, they would decide to take a few thousand human slaves with them (Jenni, Nigel, Harry Lopez, Jack McGreary and Mr. Mead among those taken). The mass disappearance would cause a new wave of religious fanaticism, once Mr. Ethics wrote a book attributing it to the “second coming of Christ”. Edwin would take over Mr. Mead’s old job at Panderic and be Mr. Ethics’ editor, making himself a decent profit off of the new book.

During the whole happiness epidemic, May would become pregnant in her stint as “Cotton Candy”, and wouldn’t remember who the father was. Once she was miserable again, she would decide to keep the baby and start a new life as a single mom working for a new publishing house. She and Edwin would see each other occasionally for drinks or lunch, but nothing romantic would ever come of it.