Dikinsonian |
|
|
Getting Critical By Gabrielle Blitz '09 November 16, 2006 On Nov. 14 at 9 p.m., HBO showed the premier of “Thin,” a documentary made by photographer Lauren Greenfield, who is known for recording the cultural attitudes of how women feel about their bodies. In this documentary, Greenfield follows four women with eating disorders at the Renfrew treatment facility in Florida. Viewers learned such information as how it takes four to seven years to recover from an eating disorder and that eating disorders occur in certain women due to “a complex mix of genetics, family dynamics, personal history and personality.” Greenfield reports that, “it has nothing to do with mainstream concerns and media pressure. I certainly think our social values play a role, but I don't think that's what's triggering a full-blown eating disorder.” She later goes into detail about the issue: while eating disorders are on the rise, a main focal point in our country's health concerns is that obesity is occurring more than ever and in turn leading to health issues like heart complications and diabetes. She says that in our culture, there are a lot of contradictions-we're obsessed with both food and thinness. We judge those that overeat and those that don't eat at all. Women or men can be both anorexic and binge eaters-some heavy, some skeletal thin and some who are just in between, but still suffer from issues or complications with food. In all of these cases, food serves as a mechanism to fill a kind of void: anxiety, pain, sadness, excitement and celebration. Through her research and photography of women across America, she has found that women use their bodies almost as a vehicle to carry out a certain “body project.” They use their bodies to express themselves with things ranging from fashion to sex to perfection. Every woman has a different trigger that can lead to an eating disorder. It doesn't always have to be abuse, divorce, death or trauma. It could just be that she wants to be thin and gets carried away. As a society, we have become so dependent on certain agents to act as a means to fix, cure, subdue or distract a final end. But what Greenfield is trying to portray is that these women will suffer from these psychological demons for a long time. Even if they are pushed aside for a time, they may arise in another form later. She argues that most people have some kind of personal connection to this illness in their lives; yet, unfortunately, this illness doesn't get reported on very accurately most of the time it is covered by the media. The media has portrayed that traditionally, those with this kind of disorder fit the stereotype of being predominately white, middle-class women. Yet, maybe those were the individuals who were receiving the expensive treatment and therefore the only ones receiving media coverage. Poor women, mothers, women from other countries and older women can all be affected. There is a broad spectrum of women--and men--with eating disorders, whether they are in their teens or in their sixties. Due to the media's representation of the causes or victims of this disease, those suffering from the disorder may feel that no one really understands what they are going through, no matter how close someone is to them. “The women who have this illness are smart, articulate, successful in many ways. And yet, they're in this kind of insane prison that's really hard to understand-but it is a mental illness that women and I think all women have a reference for,” says Greenfield. http://www.dickinson.edu/dickinsonian/detail.cfm?2232 |