From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls: The History of Self-Starvation

by Walter Vandereycken, Ron Van Deth

With waiflike models dominating the advertising world and a new wave of feminists waging war on societal pressure to be thin, eating disorders have, it seems, attained the status of a modern crisis. Although anorexia nervosa was not identified as such until the nineteenth century, the compulsion to be thin at the price of starvation has a long history in western society. Long before talk shows took over the air waves and Cosmopolitan hit the stands, obsession with body and fasting rituals plagued girls and women. But is anorexia as we know it today new?
In an engaging and thorough account of the history of self starvation in the western world, Walter Vandereycken and Ron Van Deth explore this question. Drawing on a myriad of intriguing examples, the authors show how self-inflicted starvation has changed its tone over the centuries and is inextricably enmeshed in socio-cultural contexts.
Consider how drastically the meaning of fasting has mutated in the Christian western that in the twelfth century when divine miracles were accepted realities, an emaciated girl would have been seen as holy and touched by God. That same girl would have been considered possessed and cursed by Satan in the sixteenth century when popular belief in witches was on the rise. From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls traces the history of starvation from its religious roots, bound up in rigid asceticism, to its economic ties, in the form of living skeletons like shadow Harry who toured freak shows displaying his protruding ribs for money, to the Victorian era, where modern sexual and gender stereotypes find their origin.
The book is the result of exhaustive research, covering Europe and the United States and spanning the early centuries of Christianity to the present day. From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls will interest readers in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, women's studies, religious and social history, and cultural studies.

Genres: History, Psychology, Nonfiction, Food, Religion, Cultural

280 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 1994

Reviews

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-researched book about the history of fasting and self-starvation which luckily doesn't fall into diagnosing the people from the past.

[Niamh Colbrook · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informative and largely well-written book (aside from an extremely tangential section in the final chapter), with a lot of well-researched content. However, it lacks argumentative momentum throughout. This is made more frustrating by highly promising, but underdeveloped, suggestions, such as the importance of attending to contemporary practices of self-starvation amidst abundance, a peculiar setting reflecting the significance of political and economic questions in the theorisation of anorexia. Further development of this idea would have added a refreshing perspective on hackneyed argument concerning the damaging thin ideal and diet industry. Particularly intriguing was the question with which the book ended: to what extent are present-day psychologists and psychiatrists contributing to the problem through their theorisations? Since two highly qualified psychologists have authored this book, I would have hoped for at least a gesture towards an answer. Nevertheless, the very posing of the question rests on a pleasing degree of self-awareness on the part of the authors that the narratives of their field may, in fact, be as limiting as the stigma and ignorance they are trying to combat.

[charlie gray · Rating 1 out of 5]

thought it may be interesting or that there’s some sort of education but this book was awful. the idea of it is good but it’s so bad written and there’s too much historical information that wasn’t even true. the main aspects of the topic are not in the book and the authors just copy pasted the opinions of past people

[Jodie Gale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rich history of disordered eating and spirituality

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

sehr interessant nicht nur über einzelschicksale zu lesen, sondern sich der historischen entwicklung von esstörungen anzuschauen. angenehmer schreibstil und trotzdem fachlich kompetent.

[Shirley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am currently rereading this book but I really think I read this back in grad school bc it seems very familiar...