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Anorexia caused by narcissism - Agree?

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Thread based on comments by Joan Bakewell here:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35799546

 

I think she's got a point, and if you read her comments closely she wasn't playing down the severity of anorexia at all, she was just offering a vague reason as to why anorexia is only found in populations with a food surplus. Some studies did find evidence of anorexia in Africa, but only in people who were regarded as wealthy for their country and were not suffering from malnutrition or poor access to food or water.

 

Discussing reasons behind why something exists is surely a must to help get rid of it, prevention better than cure as they say...

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Anorexia caused by narcissism - Agree?

 

Ego definitely plays a part

 

But it's mostly about control :nod:

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Ego definitely plays a part

 

But it's mostly about control :nod:

 

True.

The way I understand it, anorexia stems from a person becoming addicted to controlling their diet. Sometimes this is related to a feeling of lack of control of other facets of their lives. Many people restrict their diet at some point to lose weight, but I believe that some people are vulnerable to taking this to a dangerous extreme, and becoming addicted to controlling their body by denying it proper nutrition.

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She seems to have made the elementary mistake of thinking (or at least saying) that anorexia is about food. I expect that a fuller contextual quote didn't make the edit.

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More fuss about nothing. Someone's been "offended" :rolleyes:

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She seems to have made the elementary mistake of thinking (or at least saying) that anorexia is about food. I expect that a fuller contextual quote didn't make the edit.

 

Possibly it was taken out of context, but I don't believe so massively. Why don't we see anorexia in areas with poor access to food? Or do we see it just masked as something else, say physical self-harm or accepting sexual abuse?

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Possibly it was taken out of context, but I don't believe so massively. Why don't we see anorexia in areas with poor access to food? Or do we see it just masked as something else, say physical self-harm or accepting sexual abuse?

 

Remember that correlation does not mean causation.

 

Isn't anorexia triggered by someone wanting to take control of a situation that they feel that they've lost control. If so, maybe the specific pressures that we have in our society, which also doesn't suffer from poor access to food, acts as that trigger?

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Thread based on comments by Joan Bakewell here:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35799546

 

I think she's got a point, and if you read her comments closely she wasn't playing down the severity of anorexia at all, she was just offering a vague reason as to why anorexia is only found in populations with a food surplus. Some studies did find evidence of anorexia in Africa, but only in people who were regarded as wealthy for their country and were not suffering from malnutrition or poor access to food or water.

 

Discussing reasons behind why something exists is surely a must to help get rid of it, prevention better than cure as they say...

 

It's a mental health issue and it sounds like she's trivialising it.

What next, tell people with depression to cheer up and tell the suicidal not to be so selfish?

 

---------- Post added 14-03-2016 at 09:38 ----------

 

Remember that correlation does not mean causation.

 

Isn't anorexia triggered by someone wanting to take control of a situation that they feel that they've lost control. If so, maybe the specific pressures that we have in our society, which also doesn't suffer from poor access to food, acts as that trigger?

 

Or perhaps if someone needs to find an issue that they can control, and they are in an area with poor food access, then that thing can't be food...

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It's a mental health issue and it sounds like she's trivialising it.

What next, tell people with depression to cheer up and tell the suicidal not to be so selfish?

If you read the full interview it's very obvious that's not her point at all. She's saying that we have created a culture that encourages problems like anorexia as a society, not blaming individuals for it. Doesn't really come across in the selected BBC quotes.

 

 

Or perhaps if someone needs to find an issue that they can control, and they are in an area with poor food access, then that thing can't be food...

 

Hence why I asked were things like physical self-harm and so on a similar outlet for re-taking control? Perhaps we need to look at all self-harming (of which anorexia and bulimia must be?) as a wider picture. As you say if it's about taking control then that's a good reason why we don't see eating disorders in poorer countries, but I would suggest if we looked deeper there would be a whole range of self-harm going on.

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The lady's comments make sense. The girls and woman affected live in Countries where there is no shotage of food and problems seem to be self inflicted due to looking too much in the mirror and reading too many fashion trends. My prescription is to give these silly girls and women a job on a production line in a factory or vegetable picking on a farm.

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The lady's comments make sense. The girls and woman affected live in Countries where there is no shotage of food and problems seem to be self inflicted due to looking too much in the mirror and reading too many fashion trends. My prescription is to give these silly girls and women a job on a production line in a factory or vegetable picking on a farm.

 

That wasn't her point. Her point was that people like you and me and everyone we know, all the newspapers and the media have created a culture where it puts such pressure on younger people that they end up with a mental health disorder. She wasn't blaming the sufferers at all but discussing how we can try to change as a society to stop more people becoming affected. Also interesting that you focussed on girls and women who suffer. You must be aware that 4 times as many men (19 for 100000 for me and 5 per 100000 for women) commit suicide than females.

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The lady's comments make sense. The girls and woman affected live in Countries where there is no shotage of food and problems seem to be self inflicted due to looking too much in the mirror and reading too many fashion trends. My prescription is to give these silly girls and women a job on a production line in a factory or vegetable picking on a farm.

 

Fantastic! :hihi:

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