A Reluctantly Serious Post

The Politics of Anorexia

As much as WWP enjoys writing about the sartorial mistakes of politicians, recent discussions with friends have compelled me to write a post on the darker side of fashion.  No idea how much politics will really come into it.

I never used to take anorexia or any eating disorder that seriously.  Probably because when I was thirteen years old and obsessed with Marisa Cooper in the OC I went through a stage when I didn't eat that much (although it was probably more than I eat now) because I wanted to be skinny like her.  The fact of the matter was I was tiny and probably still fitting into children's clothes.  In any case, I was 'suffering from anorexia' in my head and in my diaries, but as this nonexistent eating disorder lasted all of a couple of months, I always assumed it was an easy thing to get over.

When everyone grew up a little bit I had a friend at school who came very near to hospitalising herself over anorexia.  She then proceeded to find God/an older boyfriend and recovered.  But when I moved to university, it was a different story.  I've realised that those of my friends (and there are substantial amount of them) that have suffered from an eating disorder all went to all-girls, usually private schools.  

An urban, female-intensive situation in my mind, spawns anorexia.  When trying to explain eating disorders to a male friend a couple of nights ago, he genuinely couldn't comprehend how skinny is attractive.  And 'attractive' is the key word, even discourse.  In a rural small town and co-educational comprehensive school, attractive means appealing to the opposite sex, which in turn equals breasts.  In a heterosexual, girls-only boarding school in the middle of nowhere, attractive means fashionable.  And in fashion, fashionable tends to equal skinny.  Until this is turned around I cannot see a way the anorexia problem can be solved, in white middle-class England at least.