More from this issue of Mind
June
2008 Issue- Facts and Fictions in Mental Health Is Animal Assisted Therapy Really the Cat's Meow?
- Head Lines Artificial Sweeteners Confound the Brain; May Lead to Diet Disaster
- Head Lines The Cubicle Bully: Workplace Conflict Ruins Careers
- Buy the Digital Edition
A recent tabloid captured the common wisdom about anorexia nervosa. In an interview, actor Christina Ricci blamed the pressures of success for her prior struggle with the disease. The headline flashed, “Ricci: Hollywood made me anorexic.”
But did it? True, anorexia is characterized by compulsive dieting or exercise to get thin. And the pursuit of thinness in contemporary culture—particularly in Hollywood—has become a seemingly contagious obsession. Yet there is thin, and then there is emaciated. Crossing over that line means a loss of a basic survival instinct—to eat in response to hunger—that culture should not be able to touch.
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