Feminist Cultural Studies: Borderline Eating Disorders

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

5 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

06/15/2008

Category :

Science & technology

Sub category :

Medical studies

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Summary :

The insistence today is that women must be thin to be worthwhile.
This need for physical restraint and control over the physical self is tied up with the idea that mind and body work more closely than some would like to believe.
Women are known to develop eating disorders as a reaction to trauma as well (Schwartz and Cohn 17).
As anorexic mindset, similar to that of an orthorexic, feels empowerment from being able to abstain from eating as a form of control (Bruch 74).
These must be a balance between excessive weight control and indulgent self-acceptance without concern for personal health.
Is the borderline eating disorder, if consciously known to its owner, a safe alternative, in need of treatment, or just as detrimental as an easily-named eating disorder?
There are few clear answers, and half of the time, we do not even have a clear definition of the things we try to solve.

Abstract

The idea of the "borderline eating disorder" has been surfacing more and more recently in popular culture. feminist theorists such as Susan Bordo and Hilde Bruch have been wrestling with this concept and its definition for quite some time. In order to address the borderline eating disorder, we must understand our culture's thin ideology and how that is perpetuated. It is also crucial to examine other sources of eating disorders, such as abuse and personal control, and what these sources mean to the eating disorder category. Ultimately, though such broad conclusions are hard to formulate, I hope that we can gain a better understanding of the origins of thin cultural standards, how those are played out on women's bodies and perceptions of themselves, and what the borderline eating disorder category means in comparison to the full-blown version so many view as the extreme.