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Anorexia is absolutely about beauty ideals. Indeed you are right: anorexia does not look pretty; anorexia is about what the patient sees when they look in the m

Anorexia is absolutely about beauty ideals. Indeed you are right: anorexia does not look pretty; anorexia is about what the patient sees when they look in the mirror: it is a perceptual disorder in a sense. Regardless of the actual weight of the person in the mirror, the anorexic sees an overweight figure looking back at them. Bulimia is more about control, that's the one that involves purging. It usually coexists with anorexia in the same patient, and goes in cycles. The patient keeps undereating due to the distorted perception of their body size, until they become so underweight that even they cannot deny their problem. Then they begin overeating to compensate for this, and then they are racked by shame due to the overeating and start purging, and the whole awful cycle begins again. Anorexia is not a trivial teenage anxiety disorder, it has a survival rate of around 80%. A horrible business.

Tichy 15y ago
Do you have sources for that? Because I really don't think it is correct. I don't know anybody with anorexia, but I know several therapists. Not that I have inquired much about the problem, but I simply have heard different things. In fact the first hit for "anorexia causes" (with DuckDuckGo) seems to confirm my thoughts: http://helpguide.org/mental/anorexia_signs_symptoms_causes_treatment.htm http://helpguide.org/mental/anorexia_signs_symptoms_causes_t... "Believe it or not, anorexia isn’t really about food and weight—at least not at its core. Eating disorders are much more complicated than that. The food and weight-related issues are symptoms of something deeper: things like depression, loneliness, insecurity, pressure to be perfect, or feeling out of control. Things that no amount of dieting or weight loss can cure." Of course blaming it on beauty ideals conveyed in the media is an easy way out for relations of anorexic persons, who then don't have to confront the real issues.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  We are confusing causes with symptoms. Anorexia may well be caused by deeper problems with the person's life, the ones you list in the quote, general sources of depression. However "anorexia" refers to a form of depression that manifests itself in issues with eating and weight. It is not the depression that kills patients, it's the undereating and the vomiting. Therefore it is entirely appropriate to discuss, deal with and treat the eating/food/weight aspects of anorexia patients' lives. When looking to actually cure the patient, therapists will indeed look to deeper issues in the person's psychology/environment. These will likely be specific to the patient, and so it is not really productive to discuss them in general terms accross populations. That can be dangerous, this kind of thinking is what lead to the concept of the "schitzogenic mother." Also, this quote shows a big misunderstanding: "Things that no amount of dieting or weight loss can cure." Nobody claims that weight loss can cure anoreixa. Anorexia is basically the irrational desire for weight loss. Being cured of anorexia essentially involves stopping ones extreme irrational weight loss behaviour, and it is self evident that no amount of weight loss can cure this.
  - Tichy 15y ago
    Sure, you might say the screwed beauty ideals are a symptom. What I was saying is that they are not the cause. And of course the starvation is a problem that has to be dealt with. How is maybe another issue best left to the specialists. I think you misread that last quote. What they say is that the anorexic persons are not actually striving for some ideal weight that would make them satisfied if they would reach it. So they say precisely that it is not some specific beauty ideal they strive for. They only wrote it like that because that is what it might look like from the perspective of the anorexic person (if only I could use so much weight, I would be OK). Anyway, I think we have settled this as far as amateur knowledge permits.

Tichy 15y ago

Do you have sources for that? Because I really don't think it is correct. I don't know anybody with anorexia, but I know several therapists. Not that I have inquired much about the problem, but I simply have heard different things. In fact the first hit for "anorexia causes" (with DuckDuckGo) seems to confirm my thoughts: http://helpguide.org/mental/anorexia_signs_symptoms_causes_treatment.htm http://helpguide.org/mental/anorexia_signs_symptoms_causes_t... "Believe it or not, anorexia isn’t really about food and weight—at least not at its core. Eating disorders are much more complicated than that. The food and weight-related issues are symptoms of something deeper: things like depression, loneliness, insecurity, pressure to be perfect, or feeling out of control. Things that no amount of dieting or weight loss can cure." Of course blaming it on beauty ideals conveyed in the media is an easy way out for relations of anorexic persons, who then don't have to confront the real issues.

JonnieCache 15y ago
We are confusing causes with symptoms. Anorexia may well be caused by deeper problems with the person's life, the ones you list in the quote, general sources of depression. However "anorexia" refers to a form of depression that manifests itself in issues with eating and weight. It is not the depression that kills patients, it's the undereating and the vomiting. Therefore it is entirely appropriate to discuss, deal with and treat the eating/food/weight aspects of anorexia patients' lives. When looking to actually cure the patient, therapists will indeed look to deeper issues in the person's psychology/environment. These will likely be specific to the patient, and so it is not really productive to discuss them in general terms accross populations. That can be dangerous, this kind of thinking is what lead to the concept of the "schitzogenic mother." Also, this quote shows a big misunderstanding: "Things that no amount of dieting or weight loss can cure." Nobody claims that weight loss can cure anoreixa. Anorexia is basically the irrational desire for weight loss. Being cured of anorexia essentially involves stopping ones extreme irrational weight loss behaviour, and it is self evident that no amount of weight loss can cure this.
- Tichy 15y ago
  Sure, you might say the screwed beauty ideals are a symptom. What I was saying is that they are not the cause. And of course the starvation is a problem that has to be dealt with. How is maybe another issue best left to the specialists. I think you misread that last quote. What they say is that the anorexic persons are not actually striving for some ideal weight that would make them satisfied if they would reach it. So they say precisely that it is not some specific beauty ideal they strive for. They only wrote it like that because that is what it might look like from the perspective of the anorexic person (if only I could use so much weight, I would be OK). Anyway, I think we have settled this as far as amateur knowledge permits.