Before you pounce I did do a search on this and came up w/zip.
Just curious if them disease Anorexia/nervosa is confined mostly to the USA?
Just wondering…
Yours truly,
aha
It is reported in a few other countries. I’ve read that the country with the highest rate of anorexia is Argentina. Surprising, isn’t it? Argentina is the most European country in Latin America. Also, there’s a model-worship there that goes beyond the U.S. This is part of the reason for the deification of Evita Peron.
I’ve heard old folk songs about people who have “died for love” - vines growing out of both graves that eventually twined? When I got older and heard about anorexia I wondered if the people in the song had just stopped eating (more or less) and died of what we’d now call anorexia.
I wish I could remember the names of the people or the song(s) but all I can come up with is Matty Groves, “…I think you’re dying” and “Stewball was a race horse” - I think we can skip that one.
At any rate, it did/does make me wonder if anorexia isn’t an 20th century invention but just more apparent in a time when kids are too healthy to die of much else.
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley
Just a digression,but -
In Argentina there also seems to be a cult of “the female bottom”.
Apparently a flat bum is not desirable,it has to stick out somewhat.This leads to young ladies forcing themselves into an unnatural(for that individual)posture and can caue lower back problems.
Argentina is also the country where the most Miss Universes are from. Beauty pageants are a huge thing there.
“I need the biggest seed bell you have. . . no, that’s too big.”–Hans Moleman
I have no statistics on the prevalence of anorexia in Spain, but it receives a lot of media attention so I assume it exists here.
The song you’re thinking of is “Barbara Allen.”
My own guess:
Annorexia Nervosa, however it’s spelled, is partly a disease and partly a symptom of something else. It’s certainly very real, but I suspect that if an American anorexic had been born in China (or America in the 1800’s), it would have come out as something else: compulsive cleanliness, neurotically paying perpetual penance for imagined sins, etc.
But I’m not the DSM or anything.
Your Quadell
Just to add my bit about Argentina and appearences (hijack! hijack!)…
I have no figures to back this up, but I did study in Buenos Aires for a few months in 1996, and there was a definite culture of beauty that could be detected, as mentioned above. The women’s magazines I ran across mentioned plastic surgery on the same level as dieting for improving one’s appearence (I’m told the level of plastic surgery there is quite high for those who can afford it, but given my lack of supporting data, I can’t really assert this for certain).
I once asked a local where all the ugly people were, as the people on the whole seemed a lot more attractive than they do in the US. She explained that they just didn’t go out.
–Amy
It’s a big problem in Britain as well, in fact a female MP is presently leading a campaign to get the fashion industry to stop using stick figures as models. I’d imagine it’s a problem in most western countries.
Not long ago, I read that cases of anorexia on one Pacific Island (Fiji? Tahiti?) have skyrocketed in the past couple years - coincidentally, or perhaps not, this trend began after the country’s television stations began broadcasting American TV shows.
I may be mistaken, but if I recall correctly, I believe anorexia nervosa has roots that go deeper than the current fashion of body sizes. I believe it has something to do with feelings of control over one’s immediate world — a factor which may or may not be affected by one’s culture. For some people, often females, their weight is the only part of their lives over which they do have any clear control.
casdave:
(continuing the hijack)
I want to join the cult of “the female bottom”.
It sounds better than that pink unicorn silliness I’ve been practicing.
Plus it might help me meet chicks!
I also enjoy a well rounded ass. I go along with the brothers on this one.
“skinny does not equal sexy!”
Are there any American missionaries?
(Preferably ones who are willing to bare their asses…er, souls to convert me?
(End hijack)
((we now return you to…um, what was the topic?))
Just putting my 2sense in.
Tyranny,* like Hell*,* is not easily conquered*.
-Thomas Paine (fugitive slave catcher)
My (non-expert) observation, from having had several friends and housemates with eating disorders, is that this is indeed the cause in SOME cases. In other cases it’s simply a desire to be thin, taken to unfortunate extremes. And even the girls I knew who said they just wanted to have control over something admitted to thinking anyone over 90 pounds was “fat” (although whether this thinking began before or after they started starving themselves, I couldn’t say).
It really is hard to imagine that a starving disease which occurs primarily in young, middle/upper class, white western women - in other words, exactly the demographic under the most pressure to be thin - wouldn’t be (on at least some level) caused by a desire to be thin. But as I said I’m not an expert.
OK, this could be total BS, but I have heard that anorexia can be traced to a woman’s denyng or fear or ??? of her developing sexuality upon reaching puberty. Meaning that it is not just wanting to be thin, it is wanting to not have curves at all, in a basic sense. That would then mean that there is a difference between the woman who is really anorexic, and the woman who just wants to be thin so she can be more attractive- because she isn’t afraid of her sexuality, she is actually trying to improve her chances of being sexual. I could see this a being true, and fitting in with the observance of it happening more in Argentina- a place where beauty is prized, and catholicism is all over the place. Gotta love that catholic guilt to put ones sexuality in check! 
I did not hear about this link with sexuality and thinness in the States- I got it here in Europe. Where I live there are many reports of woman being un-naturally thin, but they are not necessarilly clinically anorexic- the treatments are much different. One you treat with psychology and medicine, the other you treat with marriage (“Wow honey, this is such a lovely reception, lets go over to the buffet…I’m starving, I’ve been dieting for years!”). 
Any pro out there that can shed some advice on this?
I’m not a pro, but I did read something in our local newspaper’s science section that suggests that anorexia is not solely a psychological disorder. Studies have shown that there is a genetic component to the disorder as well (what doesn’t, these days?), meaning that it would probably be found throughout the world.