Free The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead by David Shields Page A

anorexia in specific response to sex changes. Girls become anorexic because they’re trying to meet a cultural ideal of extreme thinness and/or desexualize themselves. They don’t want to develop hips and breasts, and they’re afraid of their bodies getting fat. The anorexic girl, wasted, tired, not menstruating, her secondary sexual characteristics slowed by poor nutrition, thus delays her entry into adulthood.
    A superstition among “primitive” peoples: if a woman touches a cadaver, she’ll stop menstruating.
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    Ninety percent of anorexics are female. Seventy percent of women say that looking at models in fashion magazines causes them to feel depressed, guilty, and shameful. Ninety-five percent of people who enroll in formal weight-reduction programs are women. Ninety-eight percent of women gain back the weight they lose by dieting. Women regard themselves as fat if they’re 15 pounds overweight; men don’t think of themselves as fat unless they’re 35 pounds above the U.S. average. My father has always been girlishly proud of his quite thin waist; the first thing he comments upon whenever he sees me is whether I’ve lost or gained weight. His most rapturous praise: “You’re slender as a reed.” Eighty percent of people who have part of their small intestines removed in order to help themselves lose weight are women. Fifty-five percent of adolescent girls believe they’re overweight; only 13 percent of adolescent girls are actually overweight. Anorexia has the highest fatality rate of any psychiatric illness. Eleven percent of Americans would abort a fetus if they were told it had a tendency toward obesity. When asked to identify good-looking individuals, 5-year-olds invariably select pictures of thin people. Elementary school children have more negative attitudes toward the obese than toward bullies, the disabled, or children of another race. Teachers routinely underestimate the intelligence of fat kids and overestimate the intelligence of slender kids. Corpulent students are less likely to be granted scholarships. Anorexics often grow lanugo, which is soft, woolly body hair that grows to compensate for the loss of fat cells so the body can hold in heat. Anorexics have many of the physical symptoms of starvation: their bellies are distended, their hair is dull and brittle, their periods stop, they’re weak, and they’re vulnerable to infections. They also have the psychological characteristics of the starving: they’re depressed, irritable, pessimistic, apathetic, and preoccupied with food. They dream of feasts.

    Girls and women quoted in Kim Chernin’s
The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness
:

    â€œI’ve heard about that illness, anorexia nervosa, and I keep looking around for someone who has it. I want to go sit next to her. I think to myself, maybe I’ll catch it.”
    â€œOne of my cousins used to throw food under the table when no one was looking. Finally, she got so thin they had to take her to the hospital. I always admired her.”
    â€œI’m embarrassed to have bulimia. It’s such a preppy disease.”
    â€œI don’t care how long it takes. One day I’m going to get my body to obey me. I’m going to make it lean and tight and hard. I’ll succeed in this, even if it kills me.”
    â€œTo have control over your body becomes an extreme accomplishment. You make of your body your very own kingdom where you are the tyrant, the absolute dictator.”
    â€œLook, see how thin I am, even thinner than you wanted me to be. You can’t make me eat more. I am in control of my fate, even if my fate is starving.”
    â€œI get lots of compliments. My friends are jealous, but I’ve made new friends. Guys who never considered me before have been asking me out.”
    â€œI hate to say this, but I’d rather binge than make