Last Sunday, April 3, SMU’s Literary Festival kicked off its three-day program. Celebrating Women’s Studies and Program Council’s 30th anniversary, this year the festival featured nationally and locally recognized female authors and speakers both culturally and spiritually aware. The first speaker commencing this year’s festival, Lauren E. Gulbas, spoke on the complication of anorexia nervosa.
Gulbas, an SMU anthropology graduate student, graduated the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in anthropology and biology, and then received her M.A. in anthropology from the University of Texas-San Antonio. While attending the University of Pennsylvania, Gulbas wrote Understanding Violence in Elementary School Children and completed her thesis titled Understanding Pro-Anorexia in Cyberspace while attending UT-SA. Gulbas’ lecture – “Thin Junkies: Search for Purity Through Anorexia” — drew a fair crowd of all ages and genders.
Several scholars claim to have answers explaining how anorexia evolves, but all lack vindicating the complexities and the link of anorexia with purifying and cleansing the body. Dating back to the Roman Empire, anorexia’s deep-rooted dualisms to religion and sacredness proves anorexia far exceeds just wanting to look good.
While receiving her undergraduate degree from Penn, Gulbas found out firsthand about eating disorders. Living in a house with 28 other young women, Gulbas encountered high rates of anorexia and eating disorders. Whether through better grades or thinner bodies, women competed against each other. Not until her roommate began to open up about her anorexia did Gulbas begin to understand the intricacy involved.
“She would stand in front of the full-length mirror,” Gulbas said, “and if she could pinch anything on her body, she would stop eating.” Gulbas’ roommate, like 60 percent of college women according to recent studies, suffered from an eating disorder. “She told me she felt lucky to have one Muslim parent and one Catholic parent because it gave her a legitimate reason to fast twice a year,” Gulbas said.
Anorexia holds strong ties with spirituality and fasting. As early as the fifth century, women would participate in self-starvation in order to free their souls and purify their bodies. Gluttony reflected sin and individuals would avoid food to avoid going to Hell.
“Anorexia provided women with access to spirituality power and a way to gain control in a patriarchy community,” Gulbas said. To revolt oppression, women ruled something no one else could — their weight. Historian Rudolph M. Bell studied this connection and published his finding in the book Holy Anorexia. According to Bell, a holy anorexic woman “shifted the contest from an outer world in which she faced seemingly sure defeat to an inner struggle to achieve mastery over herself, over her bodily urges.” Starting in the 15th century, self-starvation showed increase. Unlike today where society frowns upon anorexia, the community viewed anorexic women as saints. Holy anorexia participants renounced food as a sign of spirituality and to show their faithfulness to God. By linking holy anorexia to religion, participants were able to justify their starvation. This continues still today.
A fairly recent phenomenon sweeping the Internet called pro-anorexia reflects the ideals once prevalent in the Roman Empire. Pro-anorexia consist of fellow anorexics supporting one other, esteeming emaciated bodies, and sharing understanding of anorexia. Calling it “thinspiration,” supporters send each other photos emphasizing their bones which are seen as aesthetically beautiful. Using biblical language, the creation of literary works such as Ana Psalms and The Thin Commandment correspond to the basic ideals of pro-anorexia. Paralleling the Bible’s 23rd Old Testament, Ana Psalm states, “Strict is my diet. I must not want. It maketh me lie down at night hungry. It leadeth me past the confectioners…” Likewise, The Thin Commandments uses language such as “thou shall not” reflecting biblical wording. Both of these works mirror Anglo-Christian ideals. Just as Protestants worship God, pro-anorexia worships Ana. Ana is not a real person nor a thing but an ideal that is forever with pro-anorexia. By reciting Ana Psalms and The Thin Commandments every day, these individuals connect and can aide each other in attaining thin bodies.
In 1874, Sir William Gull of England first used the term anorexia nervosa meaning “nervous loss of apatite” from the Greek word “orexia” and the Latin root “nervus.” Gull noted certain diagnostic features—cognitive and physical markers. Individuals with anorexia feel cold and get sick often. They think about food constantly. Always hungry, they feel that they can manage their eating habits and are good at something. “Anorexia is a form of gaining control in a chaotic world,” said Gulbas.
While the signs of an anorexic individual are clear, scholars cannot agree why anorexia occurs. In the 1880s, the first model evolved explaining anorexia — the psychological model. This model accused the parents of causing anorexia and removed patients from parents to fix the disorder. Claiming that certain events in an individual could trigger anorexia, such as poor mother-daughter relationships, the psychological model removed the patient from the source. In 1941, the biomedical model emerged. This model claimed physical factors caused anorexia—generics, hormones. This model also pointed to personality traits—high anxiety, perfectionists, all women. Both of these models however overlooked cultural events. The third model—the cultural model—paid particular close attention to the culture surrounding anorexia. Today’s culture faces bombardment of thinness and 90 percent of anorexic patients are white, female, and upper and middle class. “Initially, weight loss is praised and then emerges into an obsession,” said Gulbas. The cultural model does not however explain why certain women develop anorexia and others in the same environment do not.
Anorexic patients can fully recover from this disorder. Although difficult and time consuming, treatment consists of psychological counseling along with careful attention to medical and nutritional needs. Anorexia nervosa consists of far more than outer appearances. Whether to purify the body or gain control of it, anorexia nervosa slowly eats away at the body until nothing is left.
One can blame the parents, or the patient’s genes and hormones, or the culture surrounding today’s society, but no one can deny the deadly aftermath. In scope the Literary Festival’s theme, anorexia nervosa affects individuals desperately trying to find a reason, way to purify their bodies in a religious sense and only when culture changes its ideal of beauty will we see changes in anorexia.
