00,000 are of men ("Eating" 124). Eating disorders are associated with behavior that is meant to exert control of body weight and facilitate a slender body line. Anorexia, or self-starvation owing to irrational fat fears, and bulimia, or bingeing and then purging huge meals owing to the same fears, entail behavior patterns and personal histories that have been distinctively and consistently observed across age, sex, and race ("Eating" 124). Anorectics and bulimics alike are prone to depression and low self-esteem and may engage in eating disorders out of unresolved anger, guilt, and fear in their family environment. Anorectics often come from families "that stress high achievement and the importance of physical appearance" ("Eating 125). Bordo points to anecdotal evidence that some anorectics became so "after their families had dissuaded them from choosing or forbidden them to embark on a traditionally male career (157), suggesting that anorexia is a strategy for avoiding "the life-style [anorectics] associate with their mothers (156).
Either rationale for anorexia is consistent with clinical findings that anorectics may be subject to intense nurturance or scrutiny by parents (Meyer and Russell 134ff). By contrast, research shows that many bulimics come from non-nurturing families (Meyer and Russell 134ff). What is riding on this is the status of a whole range of primary relationships and a multigenerational impact on physical and mental well-being, or more exactly the power of psychological turmoil to foster behavior that endangers the physical organism. Equally, it has to be understood that such dynamics as family pressures, which may be observed in the clinical setting or may be reported anecdotally, occur in the context of the wider environment, i.e., are informed by sociocultural attributes. Bordo cites research describing anorexia as a "'multidimensional disorder,' with familial, perceptual, cognitive, and possibly, biological ...