KIN 4T03

Karen Leung

Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia, barely known a century ago, yet reaching epidemic proportions today
Changes in the incidence of anorexia have been dramatic
1973-1984 huge increases from 12 to 33% of college women, control weight through vomiting,
diuretics, and laxatives
Multidimensional disorder with familial, perceptual, cognitive, and biological factors
Why our culture is so obsessed with keeping our bodies slim, tight, and young
People have nightmares of getting fat tyranny of slenderness
Change in what size hips, breasts, and waist are considered attractive
Anorexia has synchronicity with other contemporary cultural practices like bodybuilding and jogging
Medicalization of sexuality in the nineteenth century which recast sex from being a family matter
into a private, dark, bodily secret
Female bodies have historically been significantly more vulnerable than male bodies to extremes in
both forms of cultural manipulations of the body
Experienced the body as an alien, as the not-self, not-me; fastened and glued to me
Body is the enemy, experienced as confinement and limitation
Instructions and rules on how to gain control over the body learn to live without it
Only way to win the no-win game is to go beyond control to kill off the bodys needs entirely
Women experience hunger as an alien invader, my stomach wanted it
I felt caught in my body, Im a prisoner in my body, something bad had gotten inside
Frustrations of starvation, this was something I could control
To run with pain is the essence of life run under the most unbearable conditions
Want to be physically perfect as possible, body-building suits the perfectionist in me
Body-builders put an emphasis on control constantly amazed by my muscle; create a masterpiece,
sculpt your body contours into a work of art
People no longer feel they can control events outside themselves
Everybody wants to live forever
Extremely slender women students complain of hating their thighs or their stomachs Fatso
Anorexia develops just at the outset of puberty
Food as insatiable and out of control, if she takes just one bite, she will not be able to stop
No century was so obsessed with sexuality particularly female sexuality and its medical control
Chinese foot-binding, the removal of bones of the rib cage in order to fit into tighter corsets
Doing Bodies Differently? Gender, Youth, Appearance and Damage
Young en are now likely to seek identification through the construction of their appearances in ways
that girls traditionally have
Pressures on all young people to wear the right clothes and have the right bodies
Exercising control and self-discipline over the body (and mind) have been theorized as becoming
desirable attributes
Young people have actively participated in this process, hungrily acquiring the consumer products
that define their youth as a separate stage from other age groups
Acceptance within sub-groups, extend beyond clothes and accessories to the body
Establishment of hierarchies of acceptability, both personally and for group membership
Sense of guilt, inadequacy and exclusion if a perfect body or style cannot be achieved
Youth particularly prone to identity damage from late consumer capitalism
Peak age for eating disorders, self-harming behavior and body dysmorphic disorder is 14-18
Established masculine ideology music, scooters, clothes, rockers Mates
Constant pressure to look a certain way so personal appearance falls between strict boundaries
Working-class utilize expensive style items
Cool, normal, wanna-be, nerd
Girls are obsessed with their appearance, but girls think that boys are too
Males are competitive, aggressive, brave , independent, leaders, physically strong
Connection between hard physical work as demonstrative of strength and confident masculine
identity
Black men and boys as physical and sexual, but unacademic and unintellectual

KIN 4T03

Karen Leung

Black boys viewed as tougher, harder and better at sports, violent, sexually threatening, trouble
makers
Asian boys = cant run fast enough, arent tough, wears glasses
Class, race and disability may also have important implications