Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are, to be sure, a sign of the times. And yet, if the matrix of social values and pressures that attend them is especially dominant today, it has been taking shape within the framework of bourgeois culture since its beginning—and beyond, within that of Western culture itself. Broadly speaking, what is at stake in an eating disorder is a sense of control or, perhaps more accurately, possession, both of oneself and of one’s surroundings—a vexed issue for females in a patriarchal capitalist setting (no less so, and in some ways even more so, after the advent of feminism). The notion of a fully realized identity, and of the expectations, rights, and responsibilities that come with it, becomes bound up with the image of a fully grown body and its needs; when psychological disposition or family dynamics render these bindings particularly uncomfortable, an eating disorder may develop. In the United States, in fact, at any given time, between 5 million and 10 million people are affected; typically, they are young women, although numbers are rising among females of all ages, including children, as well as among men. Eating disorders generally fall into one of the three following categories: anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating disorder.