Science of Eating Disorders

making sense of the latest findings in eating disorder research

Western Culture

This tag is associated with 6 posts

What’s Wrong with How We Talk About Eating Disorders in the Media and in ED Communities – Part 2

By Tetyana ⋅ January 18, 2013 ⋅ 31 comments

This is a follow-up to my last post on what I think can be improved in how we talk about eating disorders in the media and in ED communities. If you haven’t read my last post, I strongly recommend doing so before reading this one. My focus in this post will be on what individuals with a history of EDs and ED organizations can do to improve how eating disorders are perceived by the general public.

(Sidenote on my last post: I feel I didn’t emphasize enough that I used Emma Woolf’s quote as an example and a starting point. I’m confident I’ve made the same blunders that I am now speaking about. It is okay. I think the important thing is to think about our future actions, as opposed to dwelling on the past. My goal isn’t to single anyone out. Woolf is not the first, the last, or the only person to have said things of that nature–her quote was just on my mind since I saw it just a few days ago on tumblr.)

First, for those …

What’s Wrong with How We Talk About Eating Disorders in the Media and in ED Communities – Part 1

By Tetyana ⋅ January 17, 2013 ⋅ 24 comments

I’m going to do something different today. I’m going to talk about some of the problems I see in how eating disorders are discussed by some media organizations, ED awareness groups, and ED advocates.

This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list of everything that’s wrong (and there will be a follow-up). It is my personal opinion and I strongly encourage readers to leave comments if you disagree with me or feel that I’m missing something important.

I saw this quote on tumblr two days ago:

This quote is amazing for all the wrong reasons. It is so wrong, so harmful, and embodies so much of what’s wrong with mainstream ED discourse. It was written by Emma Woolf. I traced the quote back to this document put out by the UK organization ED awareness organization b-eat.

Let me be clear: I do not care who said this quote, or what was meant by it, or what context it was said in. The quote was floating around the internet, and most would read the quote out-of-context. This has nothing to do …

Does the Media Cause Eating Disorders? Disordered Eating in Iranian Women: From Tehran to Los Angeles

By Tetyana ⋅ November 7, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

What is the impact of Western culture on eating disorders? Do images of thin cause eating disorders? I mean, it seems like such a nice and simple hypothesis. It makes intuitive sense: glamorize thin and make thin cool and BAM, everyone wants to be thin. It would be so much easier. Cause? Found. Solution? Easy: ban thin models. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me, since it gives me a lot to blog about) the answer is not that simple.

Just in the last couple of hours, some people who’ve ended up on the SEDs blog have searched:

does the media cause eating disorders
thin models on tv cause eating disorders to young girls
do models influence anorexia
ultra thin models causing eating disorders
magazine article eating disorders caused by the media
and the rare: media doesn’t cause eating disorders

I’m sure most of these search terms lead people to the blog post titled, Does Too Much Exposure to Thin Models Cause Eating Disorders? Anorexia, Bulimia in Blind Women? Since variants on this theme are common search queries, I thought I’d …

Diversions: Answering Your Questions! Part 1 (Scientist in the Lab)

By Tetyana ⋅ October 6, 2012 ⋅ 2 comments

Six month ago I made my first post on the Science of Eating Disorders blog. I want to say a huge big thank you to everyone who reads, “Likes”, shares, comments and subscribes! This has been one of the most (if not the most) rewarding thing I’ve ever done (for real). I’m really happy that I have wonderful contributors who blog about their own interests and share their insight. I’m really happy people comment when they disagree, find something confusing or suggest topics for future posts.

In the last half a year I’ve amassed a large collection of search terms have landed people on the Science of Eating Disorders blog. Most are unremarkable, some are funny, others are worrisome. Once in a while people ask questions. Questions that I want to answer, false beliefs I want to tackle, or simply share with others because they are just too funny (and serve as good starting points for a serious topic).

So, to take a break from doing a typical post, I want to answer some of the search queries that have led people …

Are All Anorexics Just Afraid Of Being Fat and Can We Blame The Western Media?

By Tetyana ⋅ July 17, 2012 ⋅ 34 comments

A really fun aspect of blogging is seeing what search terms lead people to my blog; a frustrating side-effect is not being able to interact with those people directly. This entry is, in part, an attempt to answer a common question that leads individuals to my blog. Common question or search queries are variants of the following (these are actual search terms that led to this blog, I corrected spelling mistakes): “do models cause eating disorders in women?”, “pictures of skinny models linked to eating disorders”, “do the images of models in magazines cause eating disorders?”, “eating disorders relating to thin models”, “psychiatrists thought on how skinny models are causing eating disorders”, “thin models are to blame for eating disorder.”

Well, you get the point.

I briefly started tackling the notions that the ”thin ideal” promoted by Western media is to blame for the prevalence of eating disorders and a related idea that all anorexics are afraid of becoming fat, in a previous post where I examined case studies of eating disorders in (mostly congenitally) blind women.

These assumptions, along with …

Does Too Much Exposure to Thin Models Cause Eating Disorders? Anorexia, Bulimia in Blind Women

By Tetyana ⋅ May 28, 2012 ⋅ 40 comments

As many of you already know, Vogue has recently banned models that are “too-thin” (and “too young”). It is a big step in the right direction, no, a huge step, and one deserving an applause, that’s according to an article on allvoices.com. Cue a drop in the prevalence of eating disorders, right? The logic in most articles, whether implicit or explicit, seems to be: no more skinny models = no more girls aspiring to be like skinny models = no more eating disorders.

Sounds more like a PR move to me, but OK. I do have some questions and thoughts:

What does “appear[ing] to have an eating disorder” mean? Bulimics, by definition, are of normal weight or overweight. Conversely, being thin doesn’t mean having an eating disorder.

BMI above or below a certain number is not a marker of “good health”. BMI demarcations are not scientifically derived and were never meant to be applied on an individual basis.

Finally, this perpetuates the idea that looking at skinny models for too long leads to an eating disorder. It …

Science of Eating Disorders by Tetyana Pekar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Science of Eating Disorders

Western Culture

Western Culture

What’s Wrong with How We Talk About Eating Disorders in the Media and in ED Communities – Part 2

What’s Wrong with How We Talk About Eating Disorders in the Media and in ED Communities – Part 1

Does the Media Cause Eating Disorders? Disordered Eating in Iranian Women: From Tehran to Los Angeles

Diversions: Answering Your Questions! Part 1 (Scientist in the Lab)

Are All Anorexics Just Afraid Of Being Fat and Can We Blame The Western Media?

Does Too Much Exposure to Thin Models Cause Eating Disorders? Anorexia, Bulimia in Blind Women

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