Den slanka kroppens budskap

Abstract

It is argued that the cultural context, or at least some elements of it, has conditioned the flourishing of ealing disorders - anorexia, bnlimia, and obesity - in onr time. The first step in that argument is a decoding of the contemporaiv slenderness ideal so as to reveal the psychic anxielies and moral valuations contained vvithin il - valuations concerning the correct and incorrect management of impulses and desire. There are two dilferent svmbolic functions of bodv shape and si/c: the designation of social position, e.g. marking class status or gender role; and the onter indication of the state of the "soul". The "correct" management of desire in the "macro-body" of consnmer cullure reqnires a contradictory double-blind construction of the individual personality, inevitably producing an unstable bulimic type of person as its norm, along with the contrasting extremes of obesity and self-starvation. It is argued that these symbolize the contradictions of the "social body". Finally, gender is introduced into the symbolic framework, showing how the cultural management of female desire otl the one hand, and female flight from a purely reproductive destiny on the other, have overdetermined slenderness as the current ideal for women.