anorexia/bulimia Possibilities for Change: Fresh Perspectives on anorexia/bulimia

In the battle against anorexia/bulimia, individuals, the community and social institutions, are either anorexia/bulimia-supporting or fighting against anorexia/bulimia - there is no middle ground.

To treat anorexia/bulimia as a problem merely about food, to believe in a genetic basis of behavior, to simply see the problem as an individual pathology, or to treat the problem only through pharmaceuticals, is extremely pro-anorexic/bulimic. These strategies help to maintain the problem by denying the scope of the problem.

Pro-anorexic/bulimic ideas would have us believe anorexia/bulimia exists in a vacuum: it is a freak of nature, that it is merely a case of bad genes, the temperment of spoiled, little, rich girls.

To take a stance against the problem - to be anti-anorexic/bulimic - is to realize there is a definite and necessary place for medicine in the treatment of anorexia/bulimia. It is also important to realize there are a multitude of social factors living at the very heart of the problem.

• What if we began to imagine the problem of anorexia/bulimia as a cultural by-product, a dysfunctional western theme, a living reproduction of the social order?

• What if we were to begin to realize each of us, in our own way, supports and maintains the ideas of anorexia/bulimia.

• What if we began to locate this problem within a persuasive set of rules for living as dictated by a very persuasive society?