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Susan Bordo The Globalization Of Eating Disorders Summary

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There are many different opinions regarding eating disorders whether they are genetic, ethnic, cultural problems, or a culturally reactive problem. Stereotypes from the past believe that white middle class adolescents have the most related problems to eating disorders because of their anglo-saxon cultural backgrounds. Research has shown that imagery of the ideal Western body has had a chain reaction of body shape and eating habit conflict between all ethnicities, cultures, and sexes. The issue between the two viewpoints is whether the problems associated with eating disorders is cultural or culturally reactive. In the article “The Globalization of Eating Disorders”, Susan Bordo analyzes misconceptions about stereotypes associated with eating disorders. Bordo explains that eating disorders are no longer associated with one particular race, gender, or nationality. He notes that “we are dealing here with a cultural problem. If eating disorders were biochemical, as some claim, how can we account for their gradual ‘spread’ across race, gender, and nationality?” (Bordo 642). Bordo believes that imagery and mass media are to blame for the problem. The anglo saxon idea of a perfect body causes other cultures to …show more content…

“In the past, eating disorders were generally considered to be confined to young white females from middle-to-upper class families living in Western societies” (Caradas 112). Both studies exploit the false stereotypes associated with eating disorders and culture. Both parties believe that non Western cultures are being influenced by the “slim is beautiful” idea. Each view points out the false misconception that non Western cultures traditional ideas of being thick is related to health is protecting them from eating disorders. Studies prove all ethnicities have shown concern towards body shape and eating attitudes in recent years around the

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In the article “Fat Acceptance : A Basic Primer” by Cynara Geissler published in Gee Magazine 2010, she takes on the popular culture around fatness negativity into which she had herself become immersed and eventually emancipated from it. She advocates for a perspective which is centred on the Fat Acceptance Movement ideology: that ones self images and locus of attention and motivation ought not to be ones body size but rather other aspirational ideas. Geissler in building her argument reviews elements of popular culture which she finds contrary, and she does to through a review of the critics of the Fat Acceptance movement and relating her personal struggle with fat. In particular she questions the nexus between ‘shame and motivation’ and

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Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche begins by discussing the westernization of illness in other countries. The book, which was written by Ethan Watters, gives four examples of the Americanization of illness, discussing anorexia in Hong Kong, PTSD in Sri Lanka, schizophrenia in Zanzibar, and depression in Japan. The first chapter, “The Rise of Anorexia in Hong Kong”, begins with Dr. Lee. Dr. Lee has spent years studying anorexia, and has found the course of the disease has changed throughout history, especially after the introduction of the DSM. In early research, Dr. Lee found that many clients who reported an anorexia- type disease showed physical symptoms, such as stomachaches and feelings of a blocked esophagus.

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Bordo’s defines “body-image distortion syndrome” describing and stereotyping a North American white girl with money to buy fashion magazines, clothing, and parents that don't worry about putting food on the family table. Despite this description Bordo questions the reader if you have picture the syndrome to another person as Black, Latina, or Asian. Then, Bordo talks about Fiji and Central Africa and how fashion trends through media affected them differently, but at the same time with the same problem of weight loss. In Fiji island with the introduction of the television in1995, after three years in 1998, 11% of girls reported vomiting and 62% surveyed reported dieting during previous months. I think that the fashion industry is the one that

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There is a stark contrast between the rural Jamaican and the American perception of the ideal body in society. Jamaicans highly favor fat bodies, while Americans prefer the lean, lithe look. The major extreme comes when comparing women in both cultures. Jamaicans encourage young girls to eat and become fat and portray that as the most desirable. On the hand, in America, young girls are the most at risk for developing eating disorders.

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All three of these articles share one common topic: body dissatisfaction leading to an eating disorder promoted by some type of media. Some degree of body dissatisfaction among women and young girls is consider a norm today. According to one girl asked to describe the “ideal girl” she described it as “5 ft. 7 in., 100 lb. , size 5, with long blond hair and blue eyes” ( Groesz, Levine, and Murnen 1). This ideal is not attainable for all young girls and women and I can only imagine how horrible this would make them feel, always seeing images of ideal beauty and not being able to meet it can cause them to go to extremes to get the body they want.

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I am interested in Andrew’s comment and I want mention also fatism that it is the concept that is really bothering many people in this world. Many people do not have the ability to lose weight or their complexion look like overweight. We do not know exactly who are really healthy and who are not based of fat people. According to “Contextualizing Fat Shame”: “The overall cultural discourse on the “obesity epidemic” supports their advertising campaign…. (They support) the aesthetic contempt for the fat body…”

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In “The Globalization of Eating Disorders”, written by Susan Bordo in 2003, the author declares that eating and body disorders have increased rapidly throughout the entire globe. Susan Bordo, attended Carleton University as well as the State University of New York, is a modern feminist philosopher who is very well known for her contributions to the field of cultural studies, especially in ‘body studies’ which grants her the credibility to discuss this rising global issue (www.wikipedia.org, 2015). She was correspondingly a professor of English and Women Studies at the University of Kentucky which gives her the authority to write this article. “The Globalization of Eating Disorders” is written as a preface to her Pulitzer Price-nominated book “Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body” which was similarly written in 2003. Through the use of many logical arguments and evidence, Bordo successfully manages to convince her audience that the media, body images and culture have severely influenced the ‘so-called’ trending standard of beauty and how it leads to eating disorders across the world.

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In her book, Body Shots: Hollywood and the Culture of Eating Disorders, Emily Fox-Kales, a clinical psychologist with a strong background in the treatment of eating disorders, which includes bulimia, anorexia, binge eating, OSFED, EDNOS, and PICA, as well as body dysmorphia disorder describes the strong impact media has on women’s perceptions of themselves and displays the evolution of eating disorders through firsthand accounts. Fox-Kales describes society’s current culture as “the culture of eating disorders” (1). She points out that women no longer exchange recipes, but rather share a fear of food as well as diet tips and tricks to reduce weight. She continues to explain that “food has become more taboo than sex ever was and the bathroom scale more challenging a confrontation than the confessional booth” (1). Our culture has engorged the minds of women young and old with diets that are taken too far and become problematic.

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Three of these disorders are: Dhat syndrome, Ataque de nervios, and taijin kyofusho. This paper will discuss how anorexia nervosa established cross-cultural validity and how the three aforementioned culturally bound disorders could benefit from similar modifications and increased research, often according to Kleinman’s

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Dissatisfaction amongst today’s youth regarding their personal body image is increasingly common, warranting a necessary change in the norms and behaviours that are portrayed to Canadian youth. The necessary change that must be implemented moving forward is the portrayal of healthy and attainable body images through media. A 2012 ABC News article stated the average model weighs 23% less than the average woman (Lovett, 2012). Such an appalling statistic is something that must be tackled as we progress toward the future seeing as it showcases to the youth of today that anorexia and unhealthy body weight is seen as desirable or attractive. The relation between such a statistic and anorexia is clear.

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EPIDEMIOLOGY Eating disorders and related behaviours are a common problem in pre-adolescents and adolescents. A recent study on a large sample of American young people (aged 9-14 years) found that 34% of boys and 43.5% of girls had some eating disorder trait. The pivotal effect on health has led to the inclusion of eating disorders among the priority mental illnesses for children and adolescents identified by WHO. The lifetime female prevalence rates (percentage of the population) are approximately 0.9% for AN, 1.5% for BN, 3.5% for BED, and 10% for subclinical disorders.

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From an early age, we are exposed to the western culture of the “thin-ideal” and that looks matter (Shapiro 9). Images on modern television spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful. Often, television portrays the thin women as successful and powerful whereas the overweight characters are portrayed as “lazy” and the one with no friends (“The Media”). Furthermore, most images we see on the media are heavily edited and airbrushed

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1569 Words | 7 Pages

Magazines, TV, music, books, and movies help one make decisions and take action whether consciously or subconsciously. This large sphere of influence, however, is not always beneficial for those who suffer victim to these forms of public entertainment. The medias version of beauty, shames those who are considered overweight and scares almost everyone into thinking that being thin is the only way to be pretty. Jolene Hart emphasis how important beauty is in the American culture in her book Eat Pretty: Nutrition for Beauty, Inside and Out: “There’s a multi-billion-dollar industry built on helping us achieve greater physical beauty” (Hart 33). By creating this manipulated and untrue image of beauty, the American culture encourages eating disorders like anorexia (undereating) and sustains obesity (overeating).

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Mary Ray Worley, author of “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance,” is a resilient, confident, overweight, woman who gives her firsthand experience about living in a big body. Worley tells her readers that living in the twentieth-century can make people believe that being overweight is a bad thing. She even gives an example about how bigger people are more reluctant to seek medical attention out of fear of being judged just as the author of “Impact of Weight Bias and Stigma on Quality of Care and Outcomes for Patients with Obesity” did. She herself even felt like she needed to conform to the skinny standard of American society until she went to a National Association to Advanced Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) convention. At this convention, she learned that many fat people loved their body and lived health lives (Worley, 2013, p. 163).

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This describes the social and cultural norms and values around the ideal body image. Though, in the non-Western region, plumpness and the larger figure is rewarded with respect as it symbolises beauty, wealth, fertility and femininity (Nasser, 1997) as well as health and strength (Davies, 1995), the Western region tends to overvalue thinness (Dolan, 1991) and “slim and curvy” as the ideal body type for females. The dissemination of the Western ideology is obviously huge, as Bodiba, Madu, Ezeokana and Nnedum, (2008) report that non-Westerners have embraced the “slim and curvy” ideology too. According to their study, overweight South African adolescents expressed not being happy and satisfied about their body mass (how they look) and they were willing to do anything to reduce their body weight. Paradoxically, Western diets in combination with increasingly sedentary lifestyle, caused by westernization, contribute to greater levels of body fat, creating a considerable gap between the ideal and actual body types for females; hence, body image

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