The Development of the Understanding of the Disorder - Essay Example

Anorexia Nervosa and the Female Body The idea that food restriction is a mental disorder is something that has emerged from cultural developments of the 20th century. Food control has not always been seen as a disorder that needed treatment as can be shown through the culture of ancient Rome where vomiting was a practice of good health in balance to the over-indulgence of food by the upper classes. In contrast, the ways in which women have been pressured to conform to idealistic concepts of beauty throughout the centuries has often put their health at risk. The development of the understanding of the disorder that is associated with food control issues can be seen in conflict with the messages that women receive and the average woman without a disorder is just as susceptible to body image distortion issues. The development of the idea of anorexia nervosa and the associated eating disorders is the product of culture, as much as the prevalence of the disorders within culture. There is an urban myth that a part of the Roman home architecture included a place called the vomitorium in which guests could go and vomit up their orgiastic indulgences with food in order to make room for more indulgence. While the vomitorium actually refers to a passage way that would spew people into a tier of seats in an amphitheater or auditorium, the existence of regurgitation as a part of the dining experience does seem to have literary foundation. Bulimic forms of control over the ingestion of food were culturally considered an acceptable part of a life of luxury in the Roman Empire. Both food and wine consumption was a part of gluttonous indulgence (Kelley 42-43). The idea of purging was never considered a part of a mental disorder within the Roman Empire, but a part of the normative social experiences of the culture. The way in which the act was considered was based upon the purpose that it served for those who indulged in the act. While most of this is speculation from texts that refer to the practice, the idea of this form of acceptable practice is an example of how an act in one culture can be perceived as normal, where in another culture it is understood to mean something entirely different. Who indulges in the behavior and the reasons it is indulged is also relevant to understanding how an action is perceived. In the case of Anorexia Nervosa and the related condition of Bulimia, the causes for the actions and the medical issues that are a result support the definition that modern professionals place upon the disorders. The concept of the ideal woman has changed throughout history, enduring many different forms of painful transformation including breaking the foot over in half to form the lotus foot in Chinese culture and unbearable corsets that malformed the waist and pushed the organs into unnatural positions during the 19th century in Europe and the United States. Women with higher body fat are more often in fashion when populations are low, where women who are thin become the fashion when motherhood is no longer the primary focus. Women have been subjected to expectations of culture for their appearance throughout history and many have suffered greatly at the expense of that pressure. Zhang writes that “a woman who is five feet four inches tall and a hundred and forty pounds trying to look like a five foot ten inch tall, hundred and ten pound fashion model will do nothing except injure her physical and emotional health” (117). Culture and the appearance of women have a link that has affected the overall well-being of women as they struggle to discover the meaning of the gender and the roles that they should adapt. The idea that food control and the emergence of the disorder of Anorexia as a mental issue is a manifestation of the late 20th is not a historical truth. In the late 19th century a fad arose in which notoriety emerged around the idea of the ‘fasting girl’. Fasting girls would go long periods of time without food, sometimes claiming months at a time of no food being taken. No matter the age of the woman who decided to take to a long period of fasting, she was called a ‘fasting girl’ as the medical profession used the word ‘girl’ to describe a state in which the female was susceptible to emotional disorders. The notoriety of various ‘fasting girls’ gave them a type of celebrity in which media attention was given to their immense power to abstain from food. According to Brumberg, “Sometimes the girls themselves facilitated the celebration of their special powers and enjoyed the status and material gifts that came with their notoriety” (63). The conflict between the ideal of the emaciated woman and the health of the female body is not new to society, but it is a construction of society that seems to be perpetuated through history. One of the advantages of the modern age in regard to food control disorders is that modern medicine has a more thorough understanding of how a lack of proper food will affect the body. In addition, the causes of the disorder have been studied in such a way as to give the disorder an identity, providing context for why certain girls and women will seek to control their food. Langley points to the central issue of the disorder by stating that “Anorexics desperately want to be in control, and the one thing they feel they can control is their food intake” (2). The need for such deep seated control is often combined with self image issues in which body image distortion is a part of the selection of food as a target for control. Different points of reference in which the patient feels they are fat, they look fat, or that they know they are not fat, but fear of becoming so can be a central part of the disorder. The pressures on a woman to be thin comes from a culture that worships being thin. Women who are thin are valued more within modern culture. According to Ogden, 55% of women are dissatisfied with their weight and 57% are dissatisfied with their waist size with the average woman choosing a larger silhouette shape that she perceived to represent herself with choosing a smaller silhouette shape to represent the body she considered to be ideal for herself (63). In addition to the pressure to be thin, a patriarchal society continually sends messages that are disempowering to women, leading them to seek methods of control that give them a sense of autonomy. Moorey suggests that families that practice higher levels of patriarchal structures more often have an occurrence of anorexia than do families with less patriarchal authoritarianism (57). The cultural environment in which pressures to be thin are looming above women in combination with the patriarchal society which often leads women to feel oppressed and as if their choices are somewhat outside of their control, the emergence of eating disorders is one way in which control can feel to be asserted. The role of the family in the mediation of social and cultural values can be central to the development of anorexia or its associated disorders. According to Moorey, anorexia is a symptom as it acts within the structural function of a family, lending a dynamic that supports the system as a whole through the privatized emotions that are embodied in enacting eating control behaviors. Relationships between mothers and daughters are often complex and sometimes the association that feeding makes to caring is reversed where refusing food becomes a rejection of love. Women who experience anorexia usually both very strongly love and very strongly hate their mother who represents all that is wrong in the patriarchal dynamics of the world. Fathers of daughters with anorexia have often been overly active in the lives of their daughters or have been largely disengaged, both extremes leading to behaviors of acting out against the pressure of trying to gain the acceptance of their fathers. Where the father either asserts himself over the identity of his daughter or fails to acknowledge her identity, the daughter seeks a way in which to create that sense of self so that she can feel her autonomy and provide a sense of self (Moorey 60). When looked at from the perspective of this simplified understanding of the dynamics of the family where anorexia emerges, it is clear that it is in the confusion of emotional connections where it becomes needed to assert control. The choice to choose food as a way to control their environment is manifested through cultural ideas of beauty and self image while reflecting the conflicting experiences of being within certain family dynamics. The development of eating control habits is not a new cultural problem and neither is the development of painful or health risk behaviors in order to attain the perception of beauty in women. Women in modern culture have difficulties with their self image, their body satisfaction routinely at a low rate. In addition, a patriarchal society often leaves women feeling disempowered and in need of an outlet through which to feel in control. This is evident in the example of the incidents of the ‘fasting girls’ from the 19th century. Some of these women specifically made claims of denying themselves food in order to create a sense of identity in a world that was primarily denied to them through the separation of spheres with men in the public sphere and woman assigned to the domestic sphere. Where avenues of public acknowledgement of an identity were largely denied to women, creating a sense of self through demonstrative behaviors revealed emotional disorders where control and need ruled their actions. In trying to create a sense of self, the individual looks for a source of control in which to assert her will. Those who develop an eating disorder have determined that to control their intake is to create a sense of power that identifies them with both a desired thing of culture creation (thinness) and with an idea of an empowered individual. In trying to define the sense of the self through the lens of modern society expectations of beauty, a woman may choose food as one method of controlling her position within those expectations. In addition, the family plays an important role in body image issues and emotional security as it relates to food intake and control. The interesting observation is that the expectation of a daughter about how her family should relate to her also plays into the dynamic that might support an anorexic response. Through messages from culture and the development of social values based upon belief systems about women, the development of anorexia or its associated eating disorders is the result of cultural cues on how to express the need for control within the role that a woman plays in their search for ‘self’. Works Cited Brumberg, Joan J. Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. Print. Cash, Thomas F, and Linda Smolak. Body Image: A Handbook of Science, Practice, and Prevention. New York: Guilford Press, 2011. Print. Kelley, Hope. The G Sin. New York: Xulan Press, 2009. Print. Kindes, Marlene V. Body Image: New Research. New York: Nova Biomedical Books, 2006. Print. Langley, Jenny. Boys Get Anoxeria Too: Coping with Male Eating Disorders in the Family. London [u.a.: Chapman, 2006. Print. Lask, Bryan, and Ian Frampton. Eating Disorders and the Brain. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley Sons, 2011. Print. Moorey, James. Living with Anorexia and Bulimia. Manchester [England: Manchester University Press, 1991. Print. Ogden, Jane. The Psychology of Eating: From Healthy to Disordered Behavior. New York: Wiley – Blackwell, 2011. Zhang, Tina C. Earth Qi Gong for Women: Awaken Your Inner Healing Power. Berkeley, Calif: Blue Snake Books, 2008. Print. Read More