Reply #40: the claim that "eating disorders" have a purely biological etiology is shaky science too [View All]

Just because a group of psychiatrists and psychologists get together and classify a range of behaviors and mental experiences as disordered and put them into a book called the "DSM" doesn't mean the classification is based on rigorous science. Maybe 50%? of disorders have empirical testing that validates their construct. Maybe. The rest is based on theory and a sampling of psychiatrists, not patients.

Eating disorders are only called such in the 20th and 21st century. There were "holy anorectics" in the middle ages, and fasting has a rich and culturally varied history, and there's not much historical evidence to suggest that people suffered from body-image-induced anorexia and/or bulimia until the 1960s. People might have vomited at banquets to make room for more food, but that was about gluttony, not body image.

Fortunately, our girls are being educated about eating disorders now. When I was in college, maybe 1/3 of my dorm hall threw up on a regular basis to keep their weight down. It was the early 80s, and thin was in. It was directly tied to that standard. My mother never had that experience, or her mother.