"The Absence of Appetite" in Anorexia

In my previous post I looked at how Religion and practices within faiths restrict certain foods being eaten by its followers, often at specific times - such as meats at Lent and food and water in the day during the month of Ramadan.

Although I argued that these voluntary sacrifices have more negative than positive consequences, as hunger can lead to conflicting emotions and can have an awful impact on the way a person functions, I also took into consideration that many people sacrifice foods in order to feel connected to their God, which can of course make the person feel grateful, satisfied, joyous and ultimately peaceful in achieving self-control.

In this post I will explore how hunger within a person's eating disorder, specifically Anorexia Nervosa, has no positive outcomes at all as it impacts not only their own life in the most disastrous of ways but also their families, sometimes even resulting in the death of the person who suffers with this terrible illness.

Sharman Apt Russell writes in Hunger: An Unnatural History that "anorexia nervosa is a means of expression, a protest, and a hunger strike" (Russell 166), an expression of hopelessness and a protest against food and gaining weight. Although Anorexia is primarily a disorder in order to control an intake of food by denying and rejecting it, the illness can also be a means to gain control over various other aspects of an individual's life, as Heather L Nickrand and Cara M Brock argue in "Culinary Grief Therapy: Cooking for One Series" that "comfort grief eating and the escalation of eating disorders were methods individuals were using as a means of establishing control to deal with overwhelming emotions" (182) during the grieving process.

Moreover, I used the documentary Louis Theroux: Talking to Anorexia when researching into this illness and how this, similarly to the previous post discussion, also shares "The Absence of Appetite" in the lives of real people.

Being the massive Louis Theroux fan that I am, I felt it necessary to use this documentary film to help aid my discussion in this post, wondering whether it would help me with my assignment, which it certainly did.

First and foremost, I was staggered by some of the statistics given during the show.
Anorexia "has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder" (Louis Theroux: Talking to Anorexia) and the "average recovery time from anorexia is seven years" (ibid), an illness which clearly consumes a person's life and is with them for years, sometimes forever.

The documentary follows the life's of various sufferers of Anorexia, including Jess who has "never had a fulltime job due to her illness" (ibid), Janet who has been Anorexic for forty years, Rosie whose Anorexia started due to being "rejected by someone" (ibid) yet her recovery seems the most likely out of the group and Ifsana whose Anorexia led her to being "sectioned into [a] clinic by her family" (ibid).

Oddly enough I felt that out of all of the women I was most compelled by Jess and her story. Perhaps this was because I felt, to some extent, I could relate to her a little bit - she dreamt of being a teacher, a career I desperately want, she went to University and was a sociable girl until her illness really kicked in.

Theroux interviewing Jess when she describes the reasoning behind her illness
and her feelings towards food

The way she described food within the show was so sad to watch and "The Absence of Appetite" was apparent in not only hers but all of these women's life - they simply could not stand the idea of consuming anything that would make them gain weight.
For Jess not eating was more to do with feeling unworthy, as she tells Theroux that her Anorexia is "a self-punishment thing, I don't deserve to eat [...] exercise is a punishment to myself" (ibid). Jess' relationship with eating continues to be expressed in the most negative of ways when she tells Theroux that eating made her "want to physically tear the skin and the fat off me" that eating "makes [her] a fat greedy pig" (ibid), a statement which is so obviously untrue to anyone else who can see how painfully thin Jess is yet she wholeheartedly believes this, hence her decision to continue abstaining from food, suggesting that this mental illness is not only a perversion of a person’s daily functioning but also their thought process, that the once usual routine of eating is now something to feel guilty about.

Whilst it is apparent that Jess' Anorexia is spurred on from her lack of self-worth and feelings of hatred towards herself, Janet's Anorexia originated more from a desperate need to control her life, an idea I considered in the quote by Nickrand and Brock.
Whilst many people reject food or even overeat to deal with the loss of a loved one, Janet's decision to skip food was to do with her desire to stay young, never grow up and not get married, ideas that were frowned upon in her Jewish faith when she developed the illness originally.

With both Jess and Janet's life and illness taken into consideration, it is clear to see that not eating has had some serious implications on the outcome of their future. Whilst Anorexia has stopped Jess from developing in her career pathway it has stopped Janet from finding happiness through marriage, as her Anorexia led her to arguing with two potential husbands and was ultimately the contributing factor in the breakups.

Perhaps a male perspective on this illness would have been interesting to watch in this documentary, as I felt like this was desperately missing. Does a male have the same reasons to not eat? How did rejecting food impact their life? Was his understanding of food just as equally upsetting?

It goes without saying that "The Absence of Appetite" is clearly negative under the classification of Anorexia and that eating and keeping a healthy diet has restricted all of these women from reaching their full potential, as after all food is described by Varadaraja V Raman in "Food: Its Many Aspects In Science, Religion, and Culture" as "the gateway for the full experience of life (959), yet unfortunately for these women, their experience has been denied by their disorder, the refusal to eat.