History of Anorexia

Less is more. This aesthetic principle is seemingly harmless, but to an anorexic these words serve as both a vow and mantra. Since the mid-twentieth century, anorexia has been on the rise, with diagnosis tripling between 1988 and 1993 (Hoek 387).  As such, there is a rising cultural impulse to attach a narrative to the disease, a need to assign a simple, explicit reason for why women (and men) voluntarily starve themselves. All too often, societal pressures are blamed as the sole causation of anorexia. While society’s unhealthy relationship with its media representations of men and women does have a significant impact upon the development of one’s disorder, the core issue is far more complex. Anorexia stems from issues with control, and the desire to exert extreme discipline over every aspect of oneself, even at the risk of one’s health.

The need for control is the impetus that drives anorexics to starve themselves. For an individual struggling with an eating disorder, the ability to control one’s body is correlated with the ability to control one’s life.  Anorexia, as defined by Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, is “an eating disorder marked by weight loss, emaciation, a disturbance in body image, and a fear of weight gain” (Venes & Taber 127).  An anorexic will undertake a ritualistic attitude towards food, and begin to correlate eating and the feeling of satiety with that of lacking self-control. Historical accounts of anorexia support this ideal, especially in early cases of self-starvation. In the Middle Ages there are a number of accounts of young women starving themselves for the purpose of attaining sainthood. In Rudolph Bell’s research on “holy anorexia”, he states, “the control, renunciation, and torture of the body were understood not so much as a rejection of the physical, but as a way of achieving the divine” (Bell 25). Much like the medieval anorexics who starved themselves in order to be closer to God, individuals that starve themselves today are doing so in hopes of molding their inner selves through extreme punishment and control over their bodies. Although starving in order to prove one’s “divinity” is no longer common, thinness is still associated with positive attributes, including “self discipline” and “success”. For anorexics, intense self-denial and self-limitation act as confirmation of these traits, as well as provide a greater sense of authority over their bodies, and therefore their lives.

The root causes of anorexia are complex and widespread, however, they all reflect a core principle: that of needing to have complete dominion over one’s body. An individual will attempt to take control of his life by exerting control over one part of his life, his diet and therefore his body. In his book, Overcoming Anorexia Nervosa , Christopher Freeman states, “Often, individuals vulnerable to anorexia nervosa are in circumstances where they feel trapped and under pressure to succeed; or they feel out of control in their lives. The reward they get from exerting control over their food intake and consequent weight becomes of exaggerated importance and may begin to dominate their existence” (Freeman 86). As Freeman argues, this sense of control is nothing more than an illusion. The situation is paradoxical: eventually the illness will take hold of the individual’s psychological and physical self and cage them from achieving their goals and dreams. An additional cause of anorexia is the stigma attached to body types. Media representations of overweight individuals portray them as lazy and weak-willed, whereas slender individuals are typically proactive and intelligent. This bias is echoed throughout society, triggering individuals to internalize these stereotypes, which can lead to immense psychological harm.