Internalizing the Impossible: Anorexic Outpatients' Experiences With Women's Beauty and Fashion Magazines

Abstract

A growing body of research has linked the readership of women's beauty and fashion magazines with the development and perpetuation of anorexic behaviors in some young women. Although we know the link exists, little is known about the actual cognitive processes and the ways in which at risk women "use" these magazines to internalize the impossible thin ideal that appears to drive the illness. To understand this phenomenon and the process of internalization in greater depth, the authors conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 28 outpatients at an eating disorder treatment facility in the western United States. Using a grounded theory approach, the authors' analysis provides a detailed description drawn from the patients' personal accounts of how the magazines have influenced their lives and eating-disordered behaviors.

Anorexia Nervosa’s Meaning to Patients: A Qualitative Synthesis

“…[33] Losses [34,38,40] . Separation and parents' death are included in losses as well as the break-up of emotional relationships.…”

“…Feeling special [3,5,6,9,11,32, 40] Low self-esteem [9,31,33,34,39,44] Beauty [6,8,11,32,38] Distortion of the body image [8,11,40] Negative aspects of the disease The feeling of not belonging to the family [10,31,40] Presence of obsessions [3,8,9,11,32,33 [3,8,33] studies integrate this subcategory. Studies show lowered self-esteem expressed in feelings of depreciation, impotence and ineffectiveness, while anorexic patients obsessively consider their body shape and weight.…”

“…After each exam, I lost weight.' [11] External critical comments [3,6,33] . Intolerance towards criticism and comments related to physical shape set off the disease.…”

(Un)twisted: talking back to media representations of eating disorders

“…But it is to bring into focus how discursive constructions of EDs, including those offered by the media and medical discourse, are also constitutive of people's realities, experiences and self-constructions (Malson et al, 2004), reinforcing a critique of EDs as an 'innate' and individualised pathology. Recognition of this dialogue is entirely absent in previous accounts of how the testimonies of ED 'subjects' 'prove' the causal and 'toxic' power of media culture (Murray et al, 1996, Thomsen et al, 2001) -an omission which abstracts such responses from broader relations of social power.…”

“…The American psychoanalyst Hilde Bruch (1988) popularized the idea that media representations of EDs act 'pedagogically in so far as [they]… instruct women on how to reproduce the symptoms' of such problems (Bray, 2005: 120), and this perspective has permeated subsequent work in the field (Levitt, 1997, Thomsen et al, 2001). Steven R.…”