In the novel Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes, Eric Calhoun and his best friend Steve Ellerby butt heads with their classmate Mark Brittain. They all take a controversial class, Contemporary American Thought, where they discuss topics like abortion, suicide, religion, body image and social justice. Interestingly, the sup-plot of this book lends itself to the subject of morality. It shows how religion shapes a person 's moral values. Mark Brittain is a devout Christian, who has strong, self-righteous ideas about religion and abortion.
In America, most anorexia patients starve themselves due to obsession of being skinny, fear of being fat, or because “everyone else does it.” Dr. Lee was highly focused on finding out why this was and was trying to figure out why it was unique to his area. On November 24, 1994 one of Dr. Lee’s patients, Charlene Hsu Chi-Yang, died in public due to complications from anorexia. This event sparked what would be a disaster to Dr. Lee’s progress in dealing with anorexia. Journalists and reporters paralleled this event to events that happened in America, which is exactly the opposite of what Dr. Lee needed to continue progress in his care and research.
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” -Elie Wiesel This quote by author Elie Wiesel, reflects that throughout the novel Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher, a prevalent social justice theme is “Justice, Justice shall you pursue,...” (Deuteronomy 16:20). Eric Calhoune is a high school senior whose best friend, Sarah Byrnes, has been put in a hospital because she refuses to speak.
Colonialism: Tragedy or Blessing? Although we may be too busy with our everyday lives to notice, much of our world is subjected to colonization. In “An American of Color” (1993) by Victor Villanueva and “Reading the Slender Body” (1993) by Susan Bordo, both authors analyze and discuss the effects colonization has on society, and argue that the colonized have begun to mimic or mirror the colonizers as well as becoming a subaltern or the lower rank. Villanueva and Bordo write about their experiences with postcolonialism and the impact it has on society, in which minorities and females are greatly affected.
‘I already ate.’” (Anderson 121). Readers who have suffered through anorexia, or even something as simple as a diet,
This article focuses on a diet book called “The Beverly Hills Diet” which written by a women named Judy Mazel who has been suffering with an eating disorder since early adolescents. This diet book relates back to the main point of mass media affecting body image issues just from the tile and emphasis on Beverly Hills. When one thinks about Beverly Hills what comes to mind is tall, blond, sun kissed skin, and blue eyed girl and just in the tile an ideal is clear. The targeted customers for this book is anyone but it is more appealing to those who suffer from obesity and “this is the first time an eating disorder- anorexia nervosa- has been marketed as a cure for obesity” (Wooley and Wooley 57).
Food is an important aspect of our life that we thrive off of. But what happens when one doesn’t have a good relationship with food? Eating disorders affect 720 million people worldwide (or 9% of the population) There is not as much awareness about eating disorders compared to other mental illnesses even though eating disorders are the second deadliest mental illness. Eating disorders are a deadly disease that need to be brought more awareness to.
Food imagery plays a significant role in each separate narrative of the novel, linking past and present and future, bonding families and generations, expressing community and providing a linguistic code that facilitates the retrieval of personal histories from oblivion. Food allows mothers to communicate with their daughters in a common language; food is an emotional homeland for both generations. Food in Tan’s three novels performs two basic functions: the realistic and the narrative. Through the realistic function, references to food situate the novel in a specific historical or seasonal time or in an identifiable geographical of physical location. Tan in The Hundred Secret Senses, neatly evokes an early morning market in Guilin by describing baskets of citrus fruit, dried beans, teas, chilies, food vendors frying pancakes in hot oil, live poultry in cages.
Anorexia applied to every little aspect in her life, which is where it differs from anorexics who are only worried about food. She found herself counting every calorie that came near her body and digging through encyclopedias for every element in her food. Her new coming skinniness didn’t come from her sister’s nickname of “Sister Infinity Fats” that even her parents joined in on, it merely formed on something Jenny considered a hobby. But her “hobby” became more than that after a while, thinking she would be “condemned to hell” for taking up so much room and felt guilty for eating. As Jenny neared college she desperately filled her schedule with every activity she could fit into her schedule from French club to drama club.
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).
The narrative poem “The Meal” by Suzanne E. Berger focuses on imagery and screams at me because my mother lived in foster homes from the age of eight until she got married at the age of fifteen. I cannot assume this is a foster home, but I can relate it to some of the homes my mother lived in. I only say it inspired me due to always feeling the need to help under privileged children. The children in this poem is wanting attention from someone and needs food. You can tell by their silence and awkwardness at the dinner table they knew they were not allowed to speak up or ask for anything.
Susan Ice MD, an expert in eating disorders and medical director of the Renfrew Center in Philadelphia, has lectured about the rise in eating disorders. She explains, "The incidence of eating disorders has doubled since the 1960s and is increasing in younger age groups, in children as young as seven. Forty percent of 9-year-old girls have dieted and even 5-year-olds are concerned about
Prior to this class I did not know the severity of just how deadly eating disorders were. Growing up you heard about eating disorders and there may have been a few girls in high school that you knew were suffering from an eating disorder but that was the extent of what you knew. The fact that 8 million people are affected by an eating disorder is a staggering number that should alarm parents and peers alone. But although it affects this many people and has the highest mortality rate among psychiatric disorders it is rarely talked about until it hits close to home.
She also discusses how obesity can be related to health issues as well as psychological issues. A similar argument was made in the article, “Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem” by Caroline Knapp, where she talks about her personal experience on how her stress caused by college and relationships caused her to suffer from anorexia. She stated how starving yourself daily is a painful experience. Prose and Knapp both believe that eating food is not something to frown upon. I agree with this because as humans eating food is essential for living a healthy lifestyle.
Often, they judge their self-worth by their ability to control their weight/shape (Grilo 6). It is no secret that eating disorders are alarmingly common. Especially now, in this culture, where large corporations are “investing” in this industry as a result of their market research which can then only mean one thing – eating
