The "social value" trigger

An idea has been percolating for me a while. We don't advocate ending soap and shampoo commercials or unrealistic images of cleanliness out of concern for those with compulsive hand-washing or contamination OCDs, yet we do argue for changing the media to protect those vulnerable to eating disorders - should we?

If our society put a value on untidiness, or fatness, would OCDs and eating disorders take a different form? Is it the level of social value or the level of underlying brain pathology at issue?

I'm pretty sure that the "social" part of bio-psycho-social is about how humans pick up on morality in whatever form it exists. If thinness is valued then a brain primed to get its needle stuck on moral themes is picking up on the cue.

By this logic, yes: our society's mania for ectomorphs and our fat-phobia play a role in 'triggering' eating disorders. But that doesn't mean these values cause EDs. No one thinks people with OCDs got them from Ivory Soap commercials. We know intuitively that the illness is in the brain and the particular behaviors are unique to the individual's experiences.

The rub: eating disorder behaviors have the unhappy symptom of nurturing those patterns in the brain through malnutrition and setting off primal instincts around famine: effectively overriding efforts to turn the compulsive thoughts off.

(For the record, I advocate boycotting and demanding change in the media's images for another reason: because they are stupid, vapid, sexist, and harmful for ALL of us. What I'm questioning is how it all relates to eating disorders and whether our zest to shelter patients from the media actually validates their anxiety.)

Comments

  1. I think you're right about the potential harm in trying to keep patients away from negative media/influences.

    for me, I think it's been most useful to really understand the facts & the marketing. I know that diets don't work, I know that models are airbrushed & health benefits wrt weight loss & exercise are often inflated.

    Actually believing this has allowed me to just roll my eyes when I'm at the store & all the trendy magazines are covered in wt loss articles.

    it's also been useful for me to think about what I personally value, which isn't stick thin beauty, so when the news all seems to say it's morally better to eat & weigh less, I can remind myself that I don't have to let them dictate what I value.

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  2. By this logic, yes: our society's mania for ectomorphs and our fat-phobia play a role in 'triggering' eating disorders. But that doesn't mean these values cause EDs. No one thinks people with OCDs got them from Ivory Soap commercials.

    Despite the face that this line made me laugh out loud, this is one of the most serious problems facing those with eating disorders. Thank you.

    And I agree - I think the issues in the media effect everyone, not just people with eating disorders. It's gotten to the point where my boyfriend - straight, white, male - complains about how HE'S stereotyped in media...and the sad thing is, he's right.

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  3. I agree with everything you say here, Laura. Also, not all diets are prompted by a desire to meet the media's view of beauty. Lots of athletes, for example, restrict not because of media images, but because they think their sport demands it, i.e. gymnasts, figure skaters, distance runners, rowers, etc. Eating disorders are prevalent in these sports, suggesting that restricting may be the first stage in the development of the illness regardless of whether the original reason for the restricting was media influence or something else (like sports competition.) Therefore, the ED world's heavy emphasis on the media may not only be detrimental, as you suggest, but also not adequately address a big reason (athletics) why some people restrict in the first place.

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  4. I have to admit that I'm far more concerned about the non-stop bad foods "health" messages than stick-thin models who may or may not be photoshopped. And these messages aren't relegated to the media--though they're ubiquitous there--these messages are in our schools and doctor's offices, on the playground, the gym, the grocery store, TV reality shows, and practically everywhere else. (For the record, I did stop my subscriptions to Allure and Vanity Fair when my daughter was actively ill and very symptomatic, mostly due to the highly stylized ads. I am back to picking these publications up occasionally, when the mood hits me.)

    Research is coming out regularly pointing to "overweight" people being the least likely to die from nearly anything (all-cause mortality), yet the war on obesity continues unabated. Fat is still the enemy whether it's on your abdomen or thighs or in your food, no matter who you are--even if you're a growing kid.

    It makes me long for the days when moms were expected to insist that children finish their milk, and to serve three square hot meals most days. (Oh, and serve spinach or liver once a week.) And everyone understood that kids (girls, especially) got a little more rounded with the onset of puberty, and that teenagers ate one out of house and home, but also understood that was the natural order of things.

    I have a 12-year-old, and "putting on weight" is THE hot topic among the moms of her peers right now. I have to say that most of the ones I hear talking about it are plainly quite concerned that their little girl has gotten a bit chubby lately, and have started talking to their girls about dieting and exercise. Some have even taken them to their doctor who had a chat with the daughter about eating a lowfat, high fiber, lots of veggies diet and warned them off nearly everything else. Wouldn't you know it, these are the same moms who prepared only foods like that anyway--so they cut these girls back from there.

    I'm sure moms of OCD-afflicted, obsessive hand-washing kids cringe when hand sanitizer commercials come on, or when they are asked to provide two bottles of the stuff as school supplies. I know I would. But that's a problem because of OCD symptoms, not with the cause of the disease. Moms with typical kids who don't wash their hands thoroughly unless you stand over them with a cattle prod don't even much notice, nor should they.

    I do, however, think that current health guidelines and our fat-and-weight obsessed culture IS a problem that contributes to the development of EDs. And it contributes to other health problems as well.

    M.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have to admit that I'm far more concerned about the non-stop bad foods "health" messages than stick-thin models who may or may not be photoshopped. And these messages aren't relegated to the media--though they're ubiquitous there--these messages are in our schools and doctor's offices, on the playground, the gym, the grocery store, TV reality shows, and practically everywhere else. (For the record, I did stop my subscriptions to Allure and Vanity Fair when my daughter was actively ill and very symptomatic, mostly due to the highly stylized ads. I am back to picking these publications up occasionally, when the mood hits me.)

    Research is coming out regularly pointing to "overweight" people being the least likely to die from nearly anything (all-cause mortality), yet the war on obesity continues unabated. Fat is still the enemy whether it's on your abdomen or thighs or in your food, no matter who you are--even if you're a growing kid.

    It makes me long for the days when moms were expected to insist that children finish their milk, and to serve three square hot meals most days. (Oh, and serve spinach or liver once a week.) And everyone understood that kids (girls, especially) got a little more rounded with the onset of puberty, and that teenagers ate one out of house and home, but also understood that was the natural order of things.

    I have a 12-year-old, and "putting on weight" is THE hot topic among the moms of her peers right now. I have to say that most of the ones I hear talking about it are plainly quite concerned that their little girl has gotten a bit chubby lately, and have started talking to their girls about dieting and exercise. Some have even taken them to their doctor who had a chat with the daughter about eating a lowfat, high fiber, lots of veggies diet and warned them off nearly everything else. Wouldn't you know it, these are the same moms who prepared only foods like that anyway--so they cut these girls back from there.

    I'm sure moms of OCD-afflicted, obsessive hand-washing kids cringe when hand sanitizer commercials come on, or when they are asked to provide two bottles of the stuff as school supplies. I know I would. But that's a problem because of OCD symptoms, not with the cause of the disease. Moms with typical kids who don't wash their hands thoroughly unless you stand over them with a cattle prod don't even much notice, nor should they.

    I do, however, think that current health guidelines and our fat-and-weight obsessed culture IS a problem that contributes to the development of EDs. And it contributes to other health problems as well.

    M.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I saw a Swiffer ad in a magazine and I burst out laughing as I thought of this post. I wanted to do slap a Renfrew-esque sticker on it that says "This promotes unhealthy standards of cleanliness!"

    Of course, size zero models and "healthy eating" are part of the cultural milieu in which eating disorders occur, and some of my remaining recovery work is figuring out how to navigate this messed-up cultural landmine of ours. But EDs existed before supermodels and they'll exist after.

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  7. "I agree with everything you say here, Laura. Also, not all diets are prompted by a desire to meet the media's view of beauty. Lots of athletes, for example, restrict not because of media images, but because they think their sport demands it, i.e. gymnasts, figure skaters, distance runners, rowers, etc. Eating disorders are prevalent in these sports, suggesting that restricting may be the first stage in the development of the illness regardless of whether the original reason for the restricting was media influence or something else (like sports competition.) Therefore, the ED world's heavy emphasis on the media may not only be detrimental, as you suggest, but also not adequately address a big reason (athletics) why some people restrict in the first place."

    I think we're too apt to run looking for an explanation for what triggered the eating disorder in the first place. I was a competitive cross country runner, and a lot of the girls I ran with at the college level exhibited "disordered eating" without crossing the line into a full blown eating disorder. The statistics on the number of pre-adolescent girls who are dieting is frightening and is in large part due to the ideal presented in the media, but yet again, only a small number cross the line into anorexia.
    Other things like histories of abuse, families that have fights at mealtimes, overbearing mothers trying to keep their children tiny, etc. have all been blamed for eating disorders at various points.
    In the end, though, I think the genetic basis is the key focus. The patient starts restricting intake for whatever reason- even religious fasting in the 16th century- and neural processes are activated because of their genetic susceptibility. The trigger may differ, but I don't think the prevalance is actually changing much... I'm not saying those things can't serve as triggers, but trying to get the medical community to stop encouraging healthy diets, parents to keep their kids away from athletics, and magazines to stop putting size zero models on the cover is futile and won't do much for the raw numbers of children affected.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dandelion,

    Would you mind dropping me an email at carrie@edbites.com? I'd love to talk to you more in-depth about this.

    Thanks,
    Carrie

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hey Carrie,
    I emailed you--- salukimed@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

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