Re: seeking information on Anorexia

(no name) ((no email))
Mon, 20 Nov 1995 22:23:33 -0500 (EST)

Hi:
There are unusual, unwanted behaviors that come to the attention of
professionals, in some societies, under some conditions. Under specifiable
conditions, those unusual, unwanted behaviors must be categorized.

Some societies, thinking that they are on the forefront of scientific
exploration, will use categories which have a quasi-medical halo.
The category names take often take their derivation from high-sounding
Greco-Latin terms -- e. g. AN OREXIA [Isn't that an impressive term -- almost
as jazzy as SCHIZ O PHRENIA?].
And so, the term allows reification -- bad eating habits BECOME a
disease which a person HAS!!!!

Oh well -it's just a metaphor, isn't it. We all know that the name
names a social construction; don't we?
Sure -- and it's helpful, as well. It allows us to do studies. We can
do CAT scans; telling the DISEASED person to think of chocolate cakes, carrots,
and cole slaw [maybe pasta, as well]. Then we can discover the spot in the CNS
that heats up when the person thinks about vomiting up some chocolate cake.
With that, we can look for a drug that knocks out that hot spot -- and, voila,
we have the CURE for the disease.
A bit far fetched -- but why not? It should be worth about 500Gs in
grant money.

And, it all began when we decided to construe bad eating practices as a
disease.

Perhaps we should reinstitute Titian's models as the ideal; banish the
Kate Moss types to Siberia; and profess the pleasures of pasta putanesca!!!

Jim Mancuso


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