9
Eating
"She become so thin now you cannot see her," says my mother. "She like a ghost, disappear."
And I remember wondering why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good. -
Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club
Historically, both food and eating have had dífferent meanings for women and men. During the Middle Ages, for example, elective starvation was viewed as a means for women to achieve spiritual purity (Brumberg I988). In societies and historical periods such as our own, which emphasize an individual and physical/psychological, rather than a spiritual, concept of the self, women still seek perfection through manipulation of the physical. This is a different, yet related, sort of perfection, one I will discuss in detail in this chapter. What are the current meanings of food and eating in the lives of modern women in Western industrial society?
Much has been written about so-called eating dísorders-anorexia, bulimia, and bulimarexia-in women (Bruch I973, I978; Chernin I982, I985; Brumberg I988). I agree with those who consider them to be the extreme end point of normal feminine development (Nylander I97I; Button and Whitehouse I98I; Fries I977; Rodin, Silbersteín and Streigel-Moore I985; Streigel-Moore, Silberstein, and RodinI986), although Ido conceptualize them not as points on a linear continuum but as part of a complex nexus of meanings around which these issues are organized. Problems with eating and not eating need not be approached as if they differ in kind from normal feminine predicaments and are in need of separate consideration. As predictable and normal ways to become abnormal for women, they derive directly from complex experience and learning. Problems in this arena can thus best be understood by building upon what has already been developed in prior chapters about women's complex psychological development in oedipal society.
But "[a] historical perspective shows that anorexia nervosa existed before there was a mass cultural preoccupation with dieting and a slim female body" (Brumberg I988, p. 3). There are different reasons for the obsession with female appetite in different historical eras. What is primary and less subject to change is the very fact that it is symbolism and meaning that must be manipulated for women to seek approval and to avoid humiliation. The general rule dictates that, to become a woman, one must accept one's body and one's appetites as symbolic. That is, a woman's appetite and eating must be made to be responsive to the meaníngs of weight and of eating ítself along with, or instead of, the physiological cues for hunger and satiety.
The greatest incidence of anorexia, or elective starvation, has been reported in the industrialized countries (Crisp et al. I976) and among Caucasians (Galdston I974) of the upper socioeconomic groups. C. H. Hardin Branch and Linda J. Eurman (I980) found that the friends and relatives of the anorectics they studied (all Caucasian) admired the patients' slenderness and control. Studies of African-Americans have shown that those who are more assimilated into white society have more eating problems. While only S to I0 percent of all people with eating disorders are men, up to 50 percent of men who seek treatment for this problem describe themselves as homo- sexual. In a study of homosexual and heterosexual men, Joel Yager (I989) found that the former, although similar in weight and appearance to the latter, were more dissatisfied with themselves and had attitudes toward their bodies more like those of women. This should not be surprising, since, like women, homosexual men feel the need to please and attract the indeterminate and determinate male observer.
Outside the Western industrialized countries, only Japan has reported a significant number of cases of anorexia (Suematsu et al. I985). Within developed countries, the disorder is still relatively rare, but increasing among black women (Hsu I987), as it is in older women and Asian women (Nevo I985) and across the socioeconomic spectrum (Garfinkel and Garner I982; Andersen and Hay I985).
For all people, a sense of self begins asan absttaction of the physical, of competence and mastery, of sentience and sensuality. For women, however, as we have seen, a particular aspect of the physical-that is, appearance-becomes the template for the developing identity and sense of worth or value as a human being (a female human being that is). Appearance signals to a woman and to others just what her basic identity is and can be and, most important, how she deserves to be treated.
Often what is deemed desirable about women's appearance, what is pleasurable to the masculine observer, is either painful or harmful to the woman herself. Women's physicalness is rooted in the shifting sands of desirability. Their physical pleasure thus contains discomfort and self-denial, as described in the example of high-heeled shoes in a prior chapter. Pain becomes intertwined with pleasure. Concern with body shape and size may have its roots in a healthy attempt to develop oneself and to seek love, approval, and self-esteem-but for women, this means learning control and denial of the physical.
There is a significant relationship between most people's self-esteem and their satisfaction with their physical attractiveness. This relationship is consistently stronger for females than for males (Gray I977; Lerner and Karabenick I974; Tobin-Richards, Boxer, and Peterson I983). Peer evaluations and prestige are related to physical attractiveness for women more so than for men (Lerner I969; Staffieri I967). The cultural ideal of physical attractiveness is acquired in the preschool years (Styczynsi and Langlois I977) and matches that of older adolescents by the time children are seven or eight years old (Cavior and Dokecki I973; Cavior and Lombardi I973). In one study, at least, physical attractiveness was found to be the only important quality necessary for a man to like his date (Walster et al. I966).* This focus may broaden to include other qualities as men mature, but it remains central on the oedipal mattering map, and more central for men than for women.
By the time they are nine years old, four out of five girls are on self-imposed diets, and twelve-year-old girls are commonly serious dieters (Wardle and Beales I986; Hawkins, Tyrell, and Jackson I983). By the first year of college, one out of every eight women relies on self-induced vomiting or laxatives (bulimia) to control her weight (Heyn I989). According to *Reviewing a recent edition of a local newspaper (Express, August 2, I990), I carne upon the section in which people seeking a relationship can, in modern style, advertise their own qualities and those of the people whom they are seeking. Within the section describing potential heterosexual partners, almost every advertisement by a woman led off with a description of her appearance, while virtually none by men did. Instead the men described the physical qualities they sought in a woman, along with their own nonphysically based characteristics. a variety of studies and clinical and anecdotal data, gender clearly seems a much better predictor of dissatisfaction with weight and appearance than does actual weight. In fact, being overweight has been found to affect negatively the quantity and quality of women's relationships with men, while having little or no effect on men's relationships with women (Stake and Lauer I987). Consider the following:
If women are consistently more dissatisfied with their bodies than are men, young women are the most dissatisfied, particularly with their weight, hips, and muscle tone (Cash, Winstead, and Janda I986);
More women than men have rated parts of their bodies negatively (Second and Jourard I953); Females aged eleven to nineteen rate their bodies less satisfactorily than their male counterparts (Clifford I97I);
In one sample, eighty-six Midwestern high school females consistently overestimated the width of their faces, chests, waists, and hips (Halmi, Goldberg, and Cunningham I977);
One researcher found that 95 percent of the women he studied overestimated their body size (Thompson I986). The more inaccurate they were, the lower their self- esteem;
In a college sample, 59 percent of females rated themselves as low on "satisfaction with figure" (Douty, Moore, and Hartford I974). It does not take a psychologist to figure out which parts they were dissatisfied with.
THE BODY AS A PRESENTATION
In Western society women are consistently and obsessively concerned not with the process of becoming more physically adept or expressive of the needs of their own particular bodies, but instead with the body and the self as products and conveyers of information to the observer. Since the body is never a finished product, but only as good as it is at the moment, only a work in progress, women must be eternally vigilant about appearance. More often than not, women become the enemies of their bodies in a struggle to mold them as society wishes, to mediate and embody conflicts between the physical and the demands of society.
But the body obviously cannot be infinitely manipulated and decorated. It often insists on growing in its own way with a wisdom all its own. lt can be fought constantly with cosmetics and clothing, with diets and exercise, and, even more extremely, with help from the burgeoning cosmetic-surgery industry. It can be molded, manipulated, and disguised. The better a woman looks, the better life she will presumably lead, the better she will presumably be treated (unless, of course, she looks too good; recall the study I mentioned earlier that found most positive attributions being given to moderately good-looking women)-and the more she will get lost in the embodiment of society's and her own conflicting demands.
At least since the I920s, women have turned to dieting as a means of molding and shaping the body (Clifford I97I; Huenemann et al. I966; Jourard and Second I955; Wooley, Wooley, and Dyrenforth I979). As large bosoms became fashionable in the I940s and I950s, the importance of dieting lessened and that of foundation garments increased (CaldwellI98I; Probert I98I). In the late I960s, with the advent of the miniskirt, attention shifted to lower body parts, skimpily displayed, which precluded the use of foundation garments and instead reintroduced the need to diet in order to conform to the feminine ideal (Mazur I986). This ideal, along with the growing influence of the visual media, advertising, and fashion industries, created enormous cultural pressure for women to meet it.
Silverstein et al: (I986) surveyed television characters, women's and men's magazines, and popular film stars and found that the current standard of attractiveness is slimmer for women than it is for men and than it was for women in the past. At the same time, women's actual body size has been increasing. According to a recent Gallup poli, richer women are lighter and thinner than poorer ones, but richer men have the biggest waists and broadest chests (Gallup and Newport I990). Most women, but few men, are dieting at any given time (Berscheid, Walster, and Bohrnstedt I973; Lerner, Orlos, and Knapp I976; Miller, Coffman, and Linke I980). When asked to comment on their bodies, diverse samples of women usually say that they are overweight and that their hips are too big (Ben-Tovim and Crisp I984; Birtchnell, Dolan, and Lacey I987; Thompson I986).
Clearly, training to be worried about and defined by appearance is embedded in the process of learning what it means to be a female in this society. This training comes from parents or parenting adults, along with other relatives and friends, doctors, nurses, teachers, peers, and the more impersonal but extremely effective extension of the oedipal gaze, the visual media.
For example, size and bulk have been found to be positively rated to teachers' attributions of competence for boys, especially older boys. Yet they are negatively related to the same ratings for girls, especially older girls (Villimez, Eisenberg, and Caroll I986). And the power of magazines, television, and the movies as conveyers and enforcers of visual cultural standards of beauty cannot be overestimated. If I could design a program that allowed access to only one agent of change, I would choose to influence the visual media and their images of desirability.
The relentless lesson is that if a woman can control and shape her body, perhaps she can control or overcome the caprice of life, the arbitrariness of gender assignment with all its existential-physical-emotional-behavioral meaning. Paradoxically, by gaining control of her body, she succumbs to her fate as a woman. Once again, as she succeeds, she fails. This is another paradox of women's development. The identity or self contains within it this damaging, yet life-defining aspect.
According to a popular anecdote, a woman who was dissatisfied with her appearance, and as a result with the way her life was going, resolved to have a facelift, tummy tuck, and liposuction performed. She had her hair colored and styled and learned to use cosmetics expertly. Having completed this transformation and brimming with optimism, she stepped out into the street. A large truck struck and killed her instantly. Facing God, she could not help but complain. "Everything in my life was going great. Why did you do this to me now?" she asked. "To tell the truth," God replied, "I didn't recognize you."
THE BODY AS COMBAT ZONE
Various theories and interpretations of the symbolism surrounding eating disorders within this cultural context have been developed by sorne very astute observers and interpreters of women's lives. Sorne of the ways that eating disorders have been understood are as internalized expressions of hatred of women and of women's bodies; as fear of sexuality; as fear of becoming an adult woman (Millman I980; Bruch I973, I978); and as reactions to women's relationships with their mothers (Chernin I98I). Certainly the conflicts surrounding women's desires and appetites, about taking up space, and about adult sexuality are expressed elegantly and painfully in eating disorders in women.
I cannot overemphasize that all the various manifestations of difficulties with eating are only an extreme or parody of the normal. As I am sure that these interpretations all have their place, I am equally sure that if the cultural standard for women's appearance were to change overnight so that bulk became desirable, women would begin stuffing themselves and we observers and chroniclers of the human condition would have to search for the symbolism of large size. Perhaps we would then have to talk of the desire of men to regain their mothers, of women always being required to be in a state of motherhood by being larger than the baby, of hidíng or denying sexuality. Psychologists already make some of these meanings about women who are considered obese. This search for meaning, even among psychologists, typically focuses on women's síze and not on men's. This is again a reflection of the problem and not a solution or even an analysis of it. Are fat meo equivalently considered by psychologists to be denying their sexuality? Are thin or anorectic men? Are they considered to be enmeshed or in conflict with their mothers?
And do we have a psychological model of the kind of struggles that women might be having with their fathers and their relationship to eating disorders? Let me offer a model of an "anorexogenic" father. He responds in oedipal fashion to his daughter's appearance and its pleasingness to him. He teaches her, however subtly, to deny her own appetites in favor of his. He probably responds to her in a variety of sexualized ways. He teaches her w define her self-worth as a reflection. He expects perfection in these standards and, if a mother is present, expects her to enforce and reinforce them. Many studies indicate that the families, and particularly the fathers, of anorectics have perfectionistic standards and explicitly require high academic achievement of them (Suleiman I986). While Peter Dally and Joan Gomez (I979) have found that issues of academic achievement are more often a trigger for anorexia than are sexual issues, they refer only to overtly troublesome and culturally visible sexual issues.
I suggest that what ties these issues together is a more general need to be pleasing to Father in whatever ways he deems appropriate. In fact, at least one study (Gordon, Beresin, and Herzog I989) did find that fathers of preanorectic children are characterized by a sense of entitlement, which indudes everything from ruling the family autocratically to demanding the largest and best portions of food for themselves. The mothers in these families tend to be deferential and solicitous of the needs of others, especially theír spouses. The authors also suggest that these fathers have an engulfing sexualized interest in their daughters. These fathers, in all ways, fit our definition of the oedipal man.
Let us take as a starting place, then, not a constellation of behavior-feelings-thoughts extreme enough to be brought to the attention of professionals as an illness or a visible disorder, but the place of food and eating in the lives of normally socialized women in our society. The sources of women's obsessions with food and eating are made invisible by a culture that defines the problem as being individually and personally, rather than contextually, located. Thus, we have a proliferation of commerdally based diet programs and articles and books for women that focus on weight reduction as a matter of individual control. Americans spend $I0 billion a year on diet aids and programs, and the majority of these consumers are women Romano I980). Both men and women laugh at women for their obsession with dieting. It is another "natural" narcissistic quirk of women. If its contextual meaning is made invisible to the society and to the individual herself, then she becomes a prisoner of the unexamined meaning.
Only the body remains visible; the complex cultural and personal conflict is, of course, embodied rather than understood. Only when they reach the extreme of "eating disorders" are problems with larger implications noted. Even so, "eating disorders" then become the problems of certain disturbed individuals. Much as food itself tranquilizes and permits a narrow focus on complex conflicts, so do programs that deal with dieting and/or correcting so-called eating disorders.
NORMAL EATING
I submit that the normal eating pattern for women is a dieting pattern. Consider the following women, each of whose example contains a strategy for both denial of appetite and manipulation of appearance.
Susan keeps a list of every calorie she eats, and exercises every day. JI she goes over her allotted calories, she is unhappy and berates herself. She immediately worries about how much weight she has gained from the one transgression, but never weighs herself. Susan, in her mid-thirties and a professor at a major university, is in many ways an extreme/y competent and effective woman.
Lane has a different strategy. She eats nothing before S:OO P.M. At that time, she allows herself to eat a large mea/. She maintains her average weight this way. Lane is a woman in her mid-fifties who has raised a family, worked in a paraprofessional capacity, and has now returned to sl.-hool for an advanced degree. She is a talented artist.
Andrea has yet another strategy. She allows herself a different food each day,something sheisreallycraving.Tomaintain control,sheeatsonly that one food for that day. Sometimes she loses control and eats too much. Then she feels guilty.
She also feels too fat unless she is about ten pounds below heride al healthy weight. She feels thattheextraweight,whichsettlesin her hip and thigh areas,islikeaburdenthat she carries aroundandisnot really part of her. She berates it and wishes it would go away, but often does not have the will power to deny herself food.
Diane has recently completed a commercial diet program, in which she lost twenty pounds. Her lover often complained of her excess weight in the stomach and hip areas and Jet