3. - The Art of Starvation

Summary

Anorexia has a higher mortality rate than any other mental illness and most deaths occur in women. The feminist view is that we are all at risk of developing eating disorders and that the battle for control over the young woman’s life between mother and daughter is key in how anorexia begins. However, current evidence suggests mothers have been unfairly blamed, and that genetic factors play a powerful part in our vulnerability to eating disorders, with genes interacting with environmental factors. Services and expertise to treat young people with eating disorders are lacking and talk of ‘terminal anorexia’ is abhorrent. The fact that these disorders affect more women than men has influenced the level of clinical and research funding that they get. Services must move away from their reliance on BMI to decide who gets care, and their practice of only accepting those who fit into rigid diagnostic boxes. We all must all challenge, as feminism urged us, our society’s obsession with body image. However, feminism also needs to embrace the science that explains how some women are much more vulnerable to developing eating disorder than others, and why biology also matters.