Beauty Demands

The very term ‘Protestant femininity' could be considered a misnomer: ‘Protestant’ covers a wide spectrum of traditions; and Christian traditions tend not to theorise over constructed femininities, preferring – particularly those of a more conservative leaning – to understand woman as a stable concept with only one model.   Nonetheless, I argue that there has emerged from the more conservative Protestant churches in Western culture, a construction of ‘ideal femininity’. In my research with Christian women who have suffered from anorexia, it has become apparent that this ideal’s expectations have contributed to their illness. Two memoirs of eating disorders offer a perspective on the Protestant feminine ideal and its relation to weight and food: Jo Ind writes of her compulsive eating disorder ( Fat is a Spiritual Issue) and Emma Scrivener recounts her experience of anorexia ( A New Name). Both women express the difficulty they had surrounding their own identity, the expectatio...

Next week (25 th February - 3 rd March) is Eating Disorder Awareness Week in the UK and this year’s theme is Breaking Down Barriers […to treatment], of which there are many. Research indicates that only 20-30% of people with eating disorders receive professional help [1-2], despite the fact that eating disorders are frequently chronic and intractable illnesses associated with numerous medical complications, psychosocial impairment, and the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric illnesses [3]. As well as the stigma linked to mental illness, eating disorders are often also subject to an additional layer of stigma whereby eating disorders are widely trivialised, even among healthcare professionals [4]. Depending on the exact presentation, eating disorders can be viewed as the result of either an over-investment in societal standards to be thin – ‘a diet gone too far’ OR the absence of care and respect for one’s body and self. This is reflected in the research and I have person...