Nana by Edouard Manet, 1877
I learned very early to choose my lines carefully. … I know my lines in advance. I dress for occasions, for personae. There are women in my closet, hanging on my hangers, a different woman for each suit, each dress, each pair of shoes. I hoard clothes. My makeup spills from the bathroom drawers, and there are different women for different lipsticks.
-Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
image: Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, 1791
"[TW: anorexia]
The thin ideal does not cause anorexia nervosa. Contrary to popular belief, AN has existed for centuries, long before television or internet or fashion magazines, long before thinness was associated with attractiveness or health. Girls do not “become anorexic” in order to look like supermodels. Many girls have tried to “become anorexic” and failed. You cannot choose to “become anorexic” any more than you can choose to become schizophrenic or autistic or epileptic. It is impossible to develop AN if you do not have the genes for it. Dieting, while ubiquitous in American society, does not cause AN. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – dieting reliably predicts weight gain. At least 95% of dieters regain all of the weight they lost within a few years, and research suggests that the rise in obesity in recent decades is at least in part the result of repeated dieting.
Although the thin ideal does not cause AN, it impacts AN in other very important ways:
• It delays diagnosis and treatment.
Since the population is so consumed with dieting and losing weight, children and adolescents in the early stages of anorexia are usually praised for their willpower around food, for their strenuous exercise regimens, for their avoidance of “fatty foods.” Parents, friends, and even pediatricians will commend kids for losing weight and compliment them on their slim appearance. In their own zest for thinness, adults seem to have forgotten that it is neither normal nor healthy for a child or teenager to lose weight. In this “thin is in” culture, a patient’s AN is often not recognized until he or she is emaciated and visibly ill. By that point, the illness is very entrenched and treatment is much more difficult. It would save so much time, energy, suffering, and money (yes, money) to diagnose and treat AN at its first manifestation, before it spirals into dramatic weight loss.
"—
Dr. Sarah Ravin, “The Thin Ideal and Anorexia Nervosa: It’s Not What You Think”
YES. YES. YES. This entire fucking article is gold. Go read it, now.
(via unknowablewoman)
“AN has existed for centuries”
Anorexia nervosa, as we understand it today, has not existed for centuries. There have been women (mostly girls and young women) who have used the control of food intake as a means to an end — whether it was for religious reasons, an attempt to garner attention & money for their family through being a “fasting girl” who people considered saintlike, etc… but anorexia nervosa as we view it today did not really develop in the Western world until the 1860s - early 1900s. Even these mid to late 19th century cases are considered murky when it comes to labeling them anorexia nervosa by our modern view of the disorder. For example, a woman from the 1870s might be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and declared as such in medical journals, even if her refusal of food is linked to schizophrenia or another altered mental state. There are only a few snippets here and there from the 19th century anorectic patients themselves that give us a glimpse at why they may have developed anorexia nervosa—a patient admitting to an nurse that she was afraid of becoming obese and being ridiculed by friends, a patient telling a doctor that her mother often called her fat and it made her not want to eat, etc. There is also the larger context of late 19th century society, where women and food did not “mix.” A hearty appetite was seen as mannish, women were “not meant to be seen eating,” etc.
Obviously, I’m not saying that there could not have been any cases before the mid 19th century where someone had a disorder resembling modern day anorexia nervosa, nor that the control of food before the rise of the modern disorder could not have resembled today’s AN. But when people throw out “Anorexia nervosa has existed for centuries!” they’re blatantly ignoring the historical context of fasting or restricting women throughout history, which bugs me.
And that’s my 2:40 am rant.
(via missionarygirl)
The 19th century does count as “centuries ago.” A century is one hundred years in length.
(via theokkindofpossessed)
The author in this case is not referring to the 19th century as centuries ago, though. She is referring at least as far back as the 15th century, as indicated by her comments on her article.
(Source: blog.drsarahravin.com, via theokkindofpossessed)
The skeletal body can be ours for a nominal fee. As the average American steadily grows heavier, the passionate fascination with and the fetishization of the anorexic body also grows. Women fling themselves headlong down the rabbit hole, everyone else is going, it can’t be so dangerous. There are people reading this who make think to themselves: What if I just tried it? What if I just lost a few more pounds?
-Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
image: Le tub by Anders Zorn
"[TW: anorexia]
The thin ideal does not cause anorexia nervosa. Contrary to popular belief, AN has existed for centuries, long before television or internet or fashion magazines, long before thinness was associated with attractiveness or health. Girls do not “become anorexic” in order to look like supermodels. Many girls have tried to “become anorexic” and failed. You cannot choose to “become anorexic” any more than you can choose to become schizophrenic or autistic or epileptic. It is impossible to develop AN if you do not have the genes for it. Dieting, while ubiquitous in American society, does not cause AN. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – dieting reliably predicts weight gain. At least 95% of dieters regain all of the weight they lost within a few years, and research suggests that the rise in obesity in recent decades is at least in part the result of repeated dieting.
Although the thin ideal does not cause AN, it impacts AN in other very important ways:
• It delays diagnosis and treatment.
Since the population is so consumed with dieting and losing weight, children and adolescents in the early stages of anorexia are usually praised for their willpower around food, for their strenuous exercise regimens, for their avoidance of “fatty foods.” Parents, friends, and even pediatricians will commend kids for losing weight and compliment them on their slim appearance. In their own zest for thinness, adults seem to have forgotten that it is neither normal nor healthy for a child or teenager to lose weight. In this “thin is in” culture, a patient’s AN is often not recognized until he or she is emaciated and visibly ill. By that point, the illness is very entrenched and treatment is much more difficult. It would save so much time, energy, suffering, and money (yes, money) to diagnose and treat AN at its first manifestation, before it spirals into dramatic weight loss.
"—
Dr. Sarah Ravin, “The Thin Ideal and Anorexia Nervosa: It’s Not What You Think”
YES. YES. YES. This entire fucking article is gold. Go read it, now.
(via unknowablewoman)
“AN has existed for centuries”
Anorexia nervosa, as we understand it today, has not existed for centuries. There have been women (mostly girls and young women) who have used the control of food intake as a means to an end — whether it was for religious reasons, an attempt to garner attention & money for their family through being a “fasting girl” who people considered saintlike, etc… but anorexia nervosa as we view it today did not really develop in the Western world until the 1860s - early 1900s. Even these mid to late 19th century cases are considered murky when it comes to labeling them anorexia nervosa by our modern view of the disorder. For example, a woman from the 1870s might be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and declared as such in medical journals, even if her refusal of food is linked to schizophrenia or another altered mental state. There are only a few snippets here and there from the 19th century anorectic patients themselves that give us a glimpse at why they may have developed anorexia nervosa—a patient admitting to an nurse that she was afraid of becoming obese and being ridiculed by friends, a patient telling a doctor that her mother often called her fat and it made her not want to eat, etc. There is also the larger context of late 19th century society, where women and food did not “mix.” A hearty appetite was seen as mannish, women were “not meant to be seen eating,” etc.
Obviously, I’m not saying that there could not have been any cases before the mid 19th century where someone had a disorder resembling modern day anorexia nervosa, nor that the control of food before the rise of the modern disorder could not have resembled today’s AN. But when people throw out “Anorexia nervosa has existed for centuries!” they’re blatantly ignoring the historical context of fasting or restricting women throughout history, which bugs me.
And that’s my 2:40 am rant.
(Source: blog.drsarahravin.com, via historicalslut)
![Bulimia is linked, in my life, to periods of intense passion, passion of all kinds, but most specifically emotional passion. Bulimia acknowledges the body explicitly, violently. It attacks the body, but it does not deny. It is an act of disgust and of need. … The bulimic finds herself in excess, too emotional, too passionate. This sense of excess is pinned to the body. The body bears the blame but is not the primary problem. There is the sense of hopelessness in the bulimic, a well-fuck-it-all-then, I might as well binge. This is a dangerous statement, but the bulimic impulse is more realistic than the anorexic because, for all its horrible nihilism, it understands that the body is inescapable. -Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimiaimage: Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time [Allegory of the Triumph of Venus] by Angelo Bronzino](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwxffjEr3S1qbtbnyo1_500.jpg)
Bulimia is linked, in my life, to periods of intense passion, passion of all kinds, but most specifically emotional passion. Bulimia acknowledges the body explicitly, violently. It attacks the body, but it does not deny. It is an act of disgust and of need. … The bulimic finds herself in excess, too emotional, too passionate. This sense of excess is pinned to the body. The body bears the blame but is not the primary problem. There is the sense of hopelessness in the bulimic, a well-fuck-it-all-then, I might as well binge. This is a dangerous statement, but the bulimic impulse is more realistic than the anorexic because, for all its horrible nihilism, it understands that the body is inescapable.
-Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
image: Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time [Allegory of the Triumph of Venus] by Angelo Bronzino
1/13/12
breakfast:
raspberry tea (0)
lunch:
7 Kashi crackers (120)
1 wedge of laughing cow cheese (35)
2 pickles (10)
dinner:
half a tortilla (70)
1 wedge of laughing cow cheese (35)
jalapeno (4)
taco sauce (30)
chicken w/taco seasoning (120)
total: 424
One minute I was your average nine-year-old, shorts and a T-shirt and long brown braids, sitting in a yellow kitchen, watching Brady Brunch reruns, munching on a bag of Fritos, scratching the dog with my foot. The next minute I was walking in a surreal haze I would later compare to the hum induced by speed, out of the kitchen, down the stairs, into the bathroom, shutting the door, putting the toilet seat up, pulling back my braids with one hand, sticking my first two fingers down my throat, and throwing up until I spat blood.
-Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
La Brune au miroir by Henry Caro-Delvaille
![image: Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time [Allegory of the Triumph of Venus] by Angelo Bronzino](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angelo_Bronzino_001.jpg){kind=link}
