Where Did Anorexia Stereotypes Come From?

While many symptoms of anorexia don’t have medical explanations yet, this doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Educating the public about medical explanations for the disorder could reduce the stigma of the condition and help reduce its stigma. Key points Anorexia was first considered a type of hysteria.

Anorexia and Hysteria: A Shared History

Before modern medicine, unexplained women’s behaviors and illnesses were diagnosed as hysteria.

• Symptoms of hysteria included fever and physical pain, as well as behaviors that didn’t fit female stereotypes of passivity, feebleness, and fragility.
• Mood swings, anxiety, and depression were all considered symptoms of hysteria.

Psychosomatic Disorder

A psychosomatic disorder is a condition where observed physical symptoms don’t have medical explanations.

• These symptoms are instead attributed to psychological things (e.g., stress, emotions, and personality).
• Many times, we just haven’t found medical explanations for them yet.
• However, because we are beginning to find medical explanation for why anorexia develops (particularly genetics and neurochemical dysfunction), we can’t call it a purely psychoomatic condition.

Medical Explanations for Psychosomatic Symptoms in Anorexia

Alexithymia is a personality trait that makes it difficult to identify our feelings, describe what other people are feeling, and to think imaginatively.

• Illness denial is more difficult to find a medical explanation for, but emerging neurological explanations suggest that people with anorexia are not denying their illness out of stubbornness.

Separating Anorexia from Hysteria

Psychiatry asylums played a role in anorexia being recognized as its own medical condition separate from hysteria

• At first, psychiatric institutions were places where people with mental illnesses were looked after, but not treated
• This changed with a mental health reformation
• People began to see mental illness as either curable or at least manageable through kindness and therapy
• Psychiatric institutions began offering treatments and rehabilitation to the poor, and accountability came with it

Conclusions

Despite slowly finding medical explanations for anorexia since the 1800s, misconceptions about its legitimacy as an illness remain

• Understanding why people develop Anorexia is only part of the solution to changing these misconceptions
• We also need to change how we discuss Anorexy
• Diversifying the stories we tell about it
• Including males, different genders, and adults in our conversations could also help reduce its stigma
• References
• Jablonowski, J. (2018). From hysteria to anorexic nervosa: An evolution of medical terminology
• Tasca, C., et al. (2012). Women and hysteria in the history of mental health
• Science Museum (2018) A victorian mental asylum
• Abbate-Daga, G., and Bransfield, R.

Modern Misconception

Since the mid-1800s, we’ve gained a deeper understanding of why anorexia develops, but its early associations with hysteria have been difficult to escape

• Anorexia and hysteria are not the same illness
• In a 1982 Life Magazine article, it was claimed that “hysteria has almost disappeared, but if there is an equivalent today it is ANorexia, the psychosomatic disorder of young, middle-class women who won’t eat.”
• A 1988 article from Harvard scientists still suggested that both illnesses were caused by female cultural stereotypes

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