In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • “Too Fat” and “Too Thin”: Understanding the Bodily Experience of Anorexia Nervosa
  • Hannah Bowden (bio)
Keywords

Anorexia nervosa, bodily experience, phenomenology, eating disorders

I would like to begin by thanking Simona Giordano and Dorothée Legrand for their interesting and helpful commentaries on my paper. Both raise important issues, a number of which I would like to highlight in this short response.

Giordano (2012) offers a plausible explanation of anorexia nervosa (AN). She emphasizes the complexity of the disorder, stating that the anorectic has a “set of fears and values that are not necessarily irrational” (p. 249). In this respect, I think she is correct: AN is certainly a disorder that resists simple explanations, and the beliefs the anorectic holds need not be described as irrational. She explains that we may understand the anorectic’s pursuit of lightness as “an attempt to avoid invasions” (p. 248). Anorectics, she argues, feel that they have had their lives determined by others (e.g., by parents or societal expectations and values). Fat, for the anorectic, represents the ability for others to place pressure or demands on her, and her attempt to escape the body is therefore also an attempt to escape these demands and expectations. To say that she is ‘too fat’ may therefore be understood as her saying ‘others can still interfere with my life.’ In this way, she offers an alternative explanation to mine for the reason why the anorectic is able to say that she is both ‘too fat’ and ‘too thin.’ She is ‘too fat’ as others can still intrude upon her. She is ‘too thin’ because her weight is below a minimal standard needed for health.

Giordano’s account of the causation and maintenance of AN can be backed up by the experiences of many anorectics. As Bowman describes her experience with AN, “I want to stay in my own little world, my prison. Don’t come near my house . . . I’m just asking for some space . . . I draw these lines around me and shut everything out” (2009, 137). However, equally, there are numerous examples where this does not seem to be the primary experience of AN. To quote just one, Hornbacher states that, “This is a wish to murder yourself; the connotation of kill is too mild. This is a belief that you deserve slow torture, violent death. Without being entirely aware of it, I had settled on starvation as my torture of choice” (1999, 205). A description of AN as a “strenuous flight towards lightness” (Giordano 2012, 248) does not seem to capture this experience of starvation as torture. Although AN may serve for some as a means by which to avoid intrusions from others, I do not [End Page 251] think there has been sufficient research to make any conclusive decisions regarding the causes of AN. Even within the two short quotations I have provided, a marked difference in experience and interpretation can be seen, and Giordano’s explanation seems insufficient to cover the range of experiences reported.

However, even if we can accept any one causal explanation as correct, I still do not feel that this sufficiently explores my central concern of what the subjective bodily experience of AN is. Even if the anorectic does starve herself as a means of avoidance of intrusions, this still tells us little about her experience of her body before, during, and after starvation. Without having established exactly what it is that the anorectic experiences, and how consistent that experience is across different people and cultures, we are still missing a central aspect of what AN is and, as such, I feel it is unwise to make definitive statements regarding the causes of the disorder.

Giordano argues that I am resorting to “question begging false explanation” (p. 248) in using the terminology of “pathological” and “anomalous” with regards to the experience of AN, and suggests that one role of philosophy is to deconstruct “false explanations typical of psychiatry” (p. 248). I do not see the role of philosophy as being opposed to psychiatry; rather, I construe the two disciplines as working together in a mutually informative manner. Equally, I do not see myself as labeling an experience as...

pdf

Share