http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdqz0-Dl2IA&feature=youtu.be
Tag Archives: Lizzy Hayes
The Disorder in Control- Gainers vs Anorexics.
Eating disorders are a part of many people’s lives. They are psychological disorders that affect the relationship individuals have with food and their own body image. According to online medical resources Anorexia-nervosa affects 1 in 20 teenagers in the UK, though teens are not the only sufferers of the illness. Symptoms of anorexia include starving oneself in order to lose weight and keep their weight as low as possible. One of the main symptoms that stand out for me is the body image distortion that sufferers tend to have. This causes the sufferer to perceive their body as different to how it actually looks; anorexics see themselves as fat or overweight when they are thin or even underweight, even though they can acknowledge others who are of a healthier size than themsevles to be “thin”.
When I studied psychology at A-level the module on eating disorders was an eye opener. It made me aware of how body image and our opinions of body image are altered and affected by many things. There are multiple theories about eating behaviour and eating disorders within the psychological and medical community. As I have mentioned briefly in other blog posts the most obvious cause of eating disorders stems from how “Contemporary culture is obsessed with bodies” (Di Benedetto, 2007, p. 127), as can be seen in the media on a daily basis. However, of the many theories associated with eating disorders the theory that sprang to my mind when we started looking into feeders and gainers were the psychodynamic theories. According to Hilde Bruch’s Psychodynamic theory, anorexics are engaged in a struggle for their own identity and are in conflict with their parents, especially their mothers for personal control. Bruch claimed that the origins of Anorexia can be found in early childhood where parents failed to respond to their child’s needs effectively. This leads to the child becoming confused about what its own internal needs really are, causing them to become over reliant on the mother or primary carer to tell them what they need and when. Bruch’s theory suggests that during adolescents the over reliant teen seeks to establish autonomy and find a way of having some control over their own life. A person may have limited control to what they look like, but they can have control over their weight and how thin they look, as only they can determin how much of what food they consume. Limiting the food they eat, sometimes to the point of starvation not only gives them control, but creates a visual representation of that control. It has also been suggested that over protective parents or “pushy” parents can also cause teens to take drastic measures to achieve autonomy. Interestingly a statement from a patient in a study on the causes of adolescent onset anorexia nervosa a supports this theory;
“I was the first child of very young parents that overprotected me” (Nilsson, 2008, p 128).
In the feeder/gainer relationship however the gainers appear happy to relinquish control over their body and allow another human being to have power over various aspects of their life, including the food they consume; the polar opposite of anorexics.
Another theory on anorexia that suggests that gainers have polar opposite mentalities to anorexics is Freud’s psychodynamic theory. Interestingly, though unsurprisingly, in Freudian psychology eating is a substitute for sexual behaviour. Freud suggested that refusal to eat can be interpreted as a means to repress sexuality. He stated that starvation was a means of a person retaining their child like body, both visually in that the “skinny” body looks childlike and therefore less sexually attractive, and biologically, in that in girls being underweight can cause Amenorrhoea (defined by the absence of periods for three of more months in girls who have already started menstruation) and could therefore be seen as prepubescent and therefore not sexually desirable. Gainers on the other hand seek to put on weight to make their bodies more attractive and in a way promote their sexuality. They state that having more fat on the body makes them feel more attractive and say that it makes them feel more comfortable or confident in themselves. I personally find it hard to believe that such a self destructive way of living could make anyone lead a happier life, yet the phenominon is not limited to a few individuals, there are many gainers out there who all claim the same thing.
While it is easy to argue that on a psychodynamic, non chemical level, the reasoning behind the act of starvation in anorexics and gorging in gainers are very much opposite it could also be argued that they are very much the same. The aim of both being to reshape and retrain their body to make themselves into what they perceive to be a more attractive figure.
Works Cited
Brawner, L (2008) ‘Linda Montano, Anorexia nervosa and an art of hunger’, Women & Performance, 18, 2, pp. 127-132.
Di Benedetto, S (2007) Contemporary Live Art and Sensoral Perception. In: Sally Banes and Andre Lepecki (eds.) The Senses in Performance. London: Routledge.
Newton, L (2012) Anorexia Nervosa. [Online] Available from: http://www.patient.co.uk/health/anorexia-nervosa-leaflet# [Accessed 4 December 2013].
Nilsson, K, Abrahamsson, E, Torbiornsson, A, & Hägglöf, B (2007) ‘Causes of adolescent onset anorexia nervosa: patient perspectives’, Eating Disorders, 15, 2, pp. 125-133.
Skarderud, F (2009) ‘Bruch Revisited and Revised’, European Eating Disorders Review, 17, 2, pp. 83-88.
Comfort Eating.
For me the feeder/gainer relationship is rather confusing. Firstly, as a 20 year old girl in the 21st century I find that despite my better knowledge, I judge my own appearance against the appearance of other women. At what is apparently an “average” clothing size 12 I spend a lot of my time looking at myself and wishing I could be a bit thinner here, or a bit more toned there. Why? “Advertising and media play an enormous role in perpetuating women’s obsession with thinness. The media constructs idealized images of the thin and well-toned body and also promotes consumer products that help people, especially women, achieve this well-maintained body” (Allen and Sachs, 2007, p. 3).Not only that but “quick fix” diets, fat burning pills and exercise DVDs are forever thrown in the paths of the self conscious under the pretense that buying their product and following their schemes will guarantee a happier “you”. As Lupton points out “given the current elision of sexual attractiveness with a slim body, many individuals make efforts to conform to this ideal” (Lupton, 1996, p. 137) because while”A slender/attractive body is understood as a healthy, normal body…an obese/ugly body is understood as unhealthy and deviant” (Lupton, 1996, p. 137). Though media and fashion image has changed drastically sinse the publication of Luptons Food, the Body and the Self (1996), it is arguable that opinions on female body image have not changed much. So for me, to see people who want to be fat is a massive contradiction to the social norm.
(Barcroft TV, 2013)
The video above shows a female gainer who is striving to gain weight on a daily basis. Like many other gainer women she feels more attractive in her overweight state than she did when she was a more healthy size. Not only that but she relishes the idea of other people seeing her putting on weight and is of course reaping the financial rewards that publishing her weight gaining gives her.
In a strange way I find myself envious of women like this. Yes, they are over weight, but they are more comfortable in their own skin than many women who strive to be thin. They have pride in their bodies and the confidence to sexualize it, knowing that there are people out there attracted to their fat. They use their weight to their advantage, gaining pleasure not just from eating, but from seeing others get pleasure from their eating; from feeding and having control over it. Some of these women even turn their diet into a business, advertising themselves to the market of punters who find these grandiose women sexy.
Secondly, and indeed predominantly, I find myself somewhat disgusted. Being as obese as many of these gainers are or aim to be goes against all medical knowledge and in my personal opinion common sense. Is it not greedy and unfair that they can eat so much, to the point of gluttony and not spare a thought for the people in the world that could live off of the food they consume in a day, for months? And how is it fair that these women push their bodies to the point that they need the care of others to function on a daily basis? Why anyone would put their life at such a risk on purpose is beyond my comprehension. Can they not see that they are diminishing both their quality and quantity of life?
I am aware that being as uneducated as I am on the subject it is easy to pass judgement in ignorance. But even if I was knowledgeable on the subject, I am very aware that as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am looking at the feeder/gainer phenominon through the eyes of one particular type of person. It just so happens that while we may all take different things from exploring this topic, our performance group all fit a relatively similar demographic; we are all 20 year old, white, westernized women, who have been influenced through various means over our lives to believe that to be fat is to be unattractive. To understand how gainer women feel would be rewriting a life’s worth of understanding of ourselves, our appearance, and societies views on female appearance and attractiveness.
With that in mind, I am stil grappling with the questions of whether it is better to be fat and unhealthy but happy and live a shorter life, or be thinner and insecure, but be healthier and most likely live longer?
Works Cited
Allen, P., & Sachs, C. (2007). Women and food chains: The gendered politics of food. International Journal of Sociology of Food and Agriculture.
Barcroft TV (2013) Big Women Funnel Feeder: BBW Wants To Be As Fat As Possible [Online Video] Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jfxPWK47eLg [Accessed 21 November 2013].
Lupton, D (1996) Food, the Body and the Self. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Who draws the short straw? Work in Progress.
We met as a group to discuss finalisations for our work in progress performance on the 21.11.13. The first thing we want to test with an audience is what we should be wearing. We decided each feeder and gainer will wear something different for us to see what works most effectively. Secondly, we needed to decide on the high calorie foods we will be bringing in. For our work in progress we chose a few foods known for being treats so we can get the most out of the experiment. Having already planned our set up i.e. where the table of food will be presented and audience sat, it was now time to discover who would be a feeder and who would be a gainer. We wanted to leave this decision until as late as possible, so chose the afternoon before. Below, I will place a video of the straw drawing process where we discovered our fate.
After establishing the roles we will take tomorrow and planning our experiment, hopefully now with an audience to test we can discover what elements to our performance will work most effectively.
Tasks.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s article on Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium discusses the use of food as a performative medium and the various ways in which food has been used as art. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett states that
“to perform is to do, to execute, to carry out to completion, to discharge a duty–in other words, all that governs the production, presentation, and disposal of food and their staging. To perform in this sense is to make food, to serve food. It is about materials, tools, techniques, procedures, actions. It is about getting something done.” (Gough, 2012, p. 1)
This definition rings true in our performance on a number of levels. Firstly the “task” of our performance is for the eaters/gainers to complete the task of eating as much food as they can in a given amount of time. The idea of fulfilling a task in our performance was one that our group decided to focus on from very early on in the devising process, having been influence by artists such as Melati Suryodarmo, who’s performance Exergie- Butter Dance might be considered an extreme example of how the act of completing a set task with rules or time restrictions can be a very entertaining spectacle.
(Carey Goodman, 2012)
In watching this performance I found myself going through stages of reaction. First I laughed, because the concept of dancing on butter was strange to me and entertaining to watch. Yet as she started to fall I became uncomfortable. I did not like to see her inflict pain on herself, yet I was mesmerised by the movement and music to the point where I could not look away. It struck me that in completing her set task she was also pushing herself physically to the point of pain but also mentally; knowing that in completing this task you are going to fall and hurt yourself multiple times when you could just as easily walk away would take will power.
While I do not think that the butter in Exergie-Butter Dance influenced our choice to use food in our performance, our aims to push the body to complete a task soon lead us to eating as a challenge.
While Abramovic and Mary Coble have created art using the human body as a canvas, artists such as Fiona Gregore in her piece Water # 1: Decent (2011) create their pieces by pushing their body’s physical and mental endurance without mutilating or putting their bodies in obvious pain or danger. Pushing yourself mentally is a challenge that others can see if you allow them to, but it can be purely internal and private. So what would happen if we pushed our internal body?
We decided to start with the taste buds.
In our original ideas on creating tasks with food we looked into forcing ourselves to eat food we didn’t like. I for example cannot stomach bananas, even the smell makes me feel ill, and so in this experiment I had to force myself to eat one. As you can see below my feelings towards the food had not changed.
Photo by Andrew Tinley, 2013
The experiment wasn’t pleasant for anyone, including our voluteer audience. But it was fascianting. One of the most disturbing things about this experiment was how interesting it was to see each others reactions to the food that they were eating. The discusted facial expressions and noises of protest coupled with a determination that each of us should complete our task made for a mesmerising experience.
Word Count
Gough, R (2012) Playing to the Senses: Food as a Performance Medium. Performance Reasearch. On Cooking, 4, 1.
Carey Goodman (2012) Melati Suryodarmo – Butterdance. [online video]. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73MJxB7tCkk [Accessed 1 Novemeber 20213].