Currently there are three theoretical models used to explain the epidemiology, etiology, and treatment of eating disorders: the biomedical, psychological, and culture of thinness model (offered by feminists). While the three theories attempt to address the causes of eating disorders through labeling them as psychological (biomedical and psychological models) or cultural problems (culture of thinness model), they fail to address certain other causes like race, poverty, and sexual abuse.
The biomedical model begins to address eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa as having biological characteristics: hypothermia, slowed heartbeat, and excessive body hair. But it often, however, fails to address a shared biological characteristic as a cause of the disorder. This model offers physiological evidence of the negative effects of long-term starving and cycles of binging and purging, but fails to address aspects of some cultural, historical, and social causes that attribute to the disease. The second model, the psychological model, states that eating disorders are multidimensional and influenced by biological, psychological, and cultural factors. It offers effective therapeutic treatment, but it also, along with the biomedical model, fails to address race, sexuality, and class standing. The third and final model, the ‘culture of thinness’ model, was created by feminists and equates eating disorders with women feeling like they need to be thin to meet the beauty standards of the time and to be successful.
One of the underlying causes of eating disorders that Becky W. Thompson talks about during in her article is sexual abuse. Throughout it Thompson explains her research on the links between sexual abuse and disordered eating habits. She says that the disorders were a survival response, and that the girls who attributed the sexual abuse to their eating disorders tried to either become thinner or chunkier in response to their own gatherings about what the ‘perverts’ wanted in little girls.
Other underlying causes of eating disorders as stated by Thompson are race and class standing. Her research states that women of color, Latina and African American women alike, sometimes develop eating disorders in response to their class standing. They may be impoverished or under stress in their current class, and so they, believing that white, thin women have it better off, try to control their weight thinking that if they become more slender and elegant they will be able to more easily move through the class barriers holding them back.
It used to be believed that eating disorders were in response to a control factor, you couldn’t control many aspects in your life so you controlled your eating habits and weight. Now it is being more debated and more causes are being discovered, like the aforementioned race, class standing, poverty, and sexual abuse. Hopefully in the future diagnosis and therapy for eating disorders will be better and more person-specific and accurate.