The Morality of Disordered Eating and Recovery in Southern Italy

Abstract

Scholars have traced the processes through which moral subjectivities are constituted in culturally meaningful ways through eating disorders and recovery practices, demonstrating how subjective meanings of eating disorders and recovery from them are imbued with moral undertones and become meaningful ways of existing within specific historical and cultural contexts. Drawing on ethnographic insights and interviews with young women with disordered eating histories in southern Italy, we show how suffering from eating disorders and recovery from them enables women to retool their identities and craft moral selves. We draw attention to the value of medical anthropology in the care and comprehension of well-being of girls and women suffering from disordered eating.

Mother blaming and anorexia: How ideological state apparatuses have informed my perception of my mother's role in the formation of my eating disorder

“…However, I was exposed to religious discourse that moralized my mother's responsibility to feed me properly. My mother frequently said that overeating is a sin (Cheney et al, 2018), and she sometimes said that feeling happy because of tasty food was immoral. Somehow, for me, it remains unclear how this argument about sin is related to what she said about food.…”

Fear of self in eating disorders

“…Despite no mention of weight, individuals with EDs score similarly or even higher than OCD groups on this measure (Aardema et al, 2018), which suggests that the feared self in EDs may be broader than merely a feared overweight self. Historical accounts (Keel, 2005) and modern ethnographies FEAR OF SELF IN EATING DISORDERS 20 (Cheney, Sullivan, & Grubbs, 2018) identify the importance of social and cultural themes such as asceticism, self-sacrifice, and self-discipline in EDs. Furthermore, EDs have been described in terms of 'embodied morality' and perceived links with heroism, power, and spirituality have been reported (see Cheney et al, 2018 for a discussion).…”

Occupational therapy’s role in the exploration of meaning in anorexia

“…Individuals with anorexia and their occupational engagement can be assumed to be pivoted around shape and weight concerns; however, research from the social sciences reveal there are overlooked meanings in the experiences of eating disorders. Including how food practices are connected to themes of morality (Cheney et al, 2018), a way of managing trauma (Lavis, 2018), related to ideas around asceticism and wider cultural meanings around food and eating (Churruca et al, 2017;Moola and Norman, 2017). Occupational therapy's traditional goal within eating disorders has been to improve function in occupational engagement.…”