Reply #49: Eating disorders are a mental illness but the model provides [View All]

[nolabear]

the canvas on which the illness is painted, so to speak. Anorexia and bulimia are still mysterious, but are thought to involve anxiety and the feeling of lack of control and horrible self-image. "This feeling will go away if only..." and the thin imagery, a "model" of "perfection" that is put in front of all of us, but to whom young women are susceptible, provides the fantasy of attainability. It's the same way a paranoid uses a gun or an ideology, which, for most of us, isn't a problem. "If I have this, then I won't be afraid." But it's ultimately harmful.

I don't think I got my point across very well here, but I do think that the anorexic will latch onto the model and just not "see" Michelle Obama, while the rest of us are horrified at the corpselike image and enjoy the sight of a healthy, happy First Lady.