Cultural Pathogens and Psychological Carcinogens:

How Defective Environments Facilitate Disordered Eating

by

Chris Kraatz, Ph.D.

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy

Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

abstract

In a 1993 essay, ecofeminist philosopher Karen Warren stated that “it is a gross disservice to oppressed people (women) and a maldescription of social reality to treat the dysfunctional behaviors of patriarchy as personal disorders.”  What Karen Warren intends to suggest with this claim is that when a cultural framework (either with intent or without) places people in positions which require significant physical or psychological coping mechanisms in order to survive, it is irresponsible and untruthful to characterize the hardships and ill-health which result from such coping mechanisms as personal defects or disorders.

Taking seriously the orthodox notion that eating disorders are (deeply flawed) coping mechanisms employed in response to specific cultural environments, we might well inquire: 
What if Karen Warren is right – that calling such phenomena as anorexia and bulimia “personal disorders” is an irresponsible mistake?  What should we think about eating disorders?  Quite simply, their vast prevalence constitutes reliable diagnostic evidence of the presence of cultural pathogens and psychological carcinogens.  Moreover, these deadly pathogens and carcinogens need to be treated like we would be inclined to treat any other such illness  inducing conditions – they need to be minimized and eliminated, as a matter of our survival. 

In practical terms, this means that the nation’s eating disorders epidemic will not subside until we pull together and make deep and lasting social and cultural changes.  We may be able to retool a few people genetically – but if the cultural framework which causes these conditions to arise is left unchecked, we will not have the time or the resources to retool everyone who needs it – and why would we want to?  The diagnosis of an eating disorder reveals at least as much about the cultural environment as it does about the individual.  That means that the focus of change necessary to facilitate healing needs to be at least as much on the cultural environment as it does on the individual.