Page 77 - Humanism 2019

“The main thing I’ve learned is that the worry
about dieting, the worry about being skinny or
fat, is just a smokescreen...The real illness has

to do with the way you feel about yourself …You
have great fear, namely that of being ordinary, or
average or common — just not good enough.”

Today, even with advances in understanding and treatment, Anorexia
nervosa has one of the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses. An
estimate of 0.5-3.7% of females suffer from anorexia in their lifetime and
36
1% of adolescents are currently battling the disease. Although the cases
of anorexia have remained relatively constant since the 1990s, cases of
bulimia nervosa have increased and symptoms of disordered eating and
food refusal are now more often seen in girls before their first period.
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Given all that physicians have learned about the disease over the course of
a century, why has the problem gotten worse?
Today, magazines like People and Glamour feature cover stories on young
and beautiful celebrities confessing their personal struggles with anorexia
and their frustrations with society’s pressure to be thin. As these painful
stories of how even the most successful women struggled under society’s
stifling pressure to be skinny infiltrate the media, we are lead to think that
perhaps popular culture is moving away from the idea that thin bodies are
beautiful ones. But this sentiment fades once we turn the page to see a
stick-thin model in Gucci’s latest threads, or when we receive next month’s
issue featuring a cover story on “Hollywood’s Hottest Bodies: 100 Tips
from the Stars.” Popular culture is rife with these contradictions.
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Here lies a paradox that makes anorexia and other eating disorders so
difficult to solve. As Americans’ awareness about the dangers of eating
disorders increase, so does their awe. A disease that often befalls the
young, rich, and beautiful leaves many baffled. Although well intentioned,
when models and celebrities confess their eating disorders to prove to the
public that these thin bodies come natural to almost no one, the disease is
idolized. Along with the latest Marc Jacobs bag and Prada shoes,
celebrities and popular culture are making eating disorders the latest trend.

Many young women feel that the answers to their problems and
insecurities lie in food restriction because losing weight feels powerful. As
one of Bruch’s patients confessed, the desire to be slim is not necessarily
the root of the disease; the “real illness has to do with feeling good about
Cover of Harper’s Bazaar,
yourself.” By depriving herself of the nutrition needed for life, she no emka74 / Shutterstock.com
longer felt “ordinary, average, or common.” n
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen,
Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com

HUMANISM IN THE HEALTH SCIENCES 2019 • VOL. 22 74