Anorexia and Media Whoredom
Warning - this post contains rantings and ravings that have been bottled up for years. This is in no way directed at any particular media outlet - magazines, tv shows, or blogs. This is something I just really needed to get off my chest. Thanks for understanding.
The subject of eating disorders is a touchy on with me. They get a lot of attention in the media, print and web, as well as in health classes from junior high to high school. When it's brought up, almost everyone wants to get on the bandwagon and fall over themselves to show their "support" for those poor, frail, sickly girls that have starved, thrown up, and overexercised their way to the front page of prominent magazines and daytime talk shows.
No, I don't think people starve themselves to just get on the covers of new stories but the overemphasis on anorexia/bulemia is another symptom of our cultural obsession with thinness. The term "eating disorder" has become synonymous with someone who deprives themselves, but never with people who overfeed themselves. Anorexic people are always absolved of their responsibility - see, they have an illness. They've even tried to blame genetics and autism for their self inflicted plight. Fat people are just lazy, gluttonous, and lack self control.
Nevermind that fat people have always been the subject of ridicule, bullying, and all around disdain; fat people have also been given mixed signals over the years in terms of how to solve their weight problem. Take this pill, no take that one. For heaven's sakes don't starve yourself (but you can watch us sob and sympathize with anorexics in magazines). Eat a well balanced diet that contains the same foods meant to fatten cattle. You can have certain foods, but you can only eat a little of them even though they were manufactured to make you binge. Yes you are fat, no you aren't fat. You would look good if you would only lose a few pounds, but you shouldn't lose weight to be attractive you should do it for your health. I've ranted enough, but the list of contradictory "help" people dispense unprompted could really go on for a while.
Out of all this, fat people get to watch anorexics/bulemics given sympathetic limelight overall. Fat people that are pictured in news stories are photographed from the shoulders down - and probably without the individual's consent. A fat person is apparently just a nonperson - without feeling, needs, or rights. Anorexics and bulemics, on the other hand are artfully photographed to sell whatever media product they are featured on. We see sensitive glimpses of gaunt (attractive to US standards) faces, huge soulful, hungry eyes fixated on the camera. They have a face, they have an identity. They don't have to worry about being written off as useless basket cases. Because they aren't too fat to not matter.
Even though obese and morbidly obese people are on the fastest rise in the nation, anorexics and bulemics are still given the limelight. Obesity affects over 60% of American adult population, and anorexia and bulemia 10-20%. While yes, people should be aware of anorexia and bulemia, their media coverage is startling excessive in the face of our national situation. Shouldn't eating disorders that cause obesity be focused on, considering the staggering amount of American adults that are overweight or obese?
But they aren't. Maybe it's because anorexics and bulemics are the best models for visual media. It gives people something ideal to care about, on a standard that is easy to empathize with. Fat people are not empathized with, they are often despised. Anyone giving sympathy to fat people is accused of pandering to them.
Now, on the topic of pro-Ana, there are some people out there that want to save people from themselves. They want to "help" anorexics by telling them to do what the anorexics fear most - eat. Well I don't see that winning them over. I don't know what will - considering the "eating disorder" feeds off of the attention of others. Having people tell them to eat will give them more reason not to eat. They see people sympathizing with them, they see the media giving them sympathetic limelight - this is a reward for them. Most will not admit it, but it's true. Anorexia is not about food as it is about attention - sexual, emotional, and whatever else kind you can think of. People will do strange things for validation from others, that much I have learned in the past few days. Self-destruction is a good way people get other people's attention.
The problem is, until anyone with an eating disorder, or some other self-infliction mental illness really admits that they've got a problem, the chances of "helping" them unprofessionally are slim to none. These people are NOT the kind of lives I see worth messing around with. These are people that logically understand that they could very well kill themselves with their actions, but don't see any other way to be a healthy person.
Some would retort that fat people are the same - and reluctantly, I would have to agree that this is sometimes the case. I've known people who were obese that complained about their body, but when I went to take them to the gym, or suggested a change in eating habits, my ideas were shot down followed with more whining. Clearly, I am a fat woman and this bothers even me. I am a straight-shooter, no BS kind of person that doesn't tolerate self pity. I have been through too much in life to allow that to be an obstacle. But for the most part, I see fat many people desperately seeking answers to why they crave food, why they can't lose weight, and why they can't seem to find even one solution amongst thousands of diet products. Isn't that just as important to focus on nationally as starving, vomiting, cutting people? Or will fat people be trivialized forever?
