To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the April 30 column, "The Perfect Body," by Katie Shutzer '96. Shutzer, in an attempt to rally the Dartmouth community against eating disorders, asks the rhetorical question, "When will we recognize that this is a postmodern holocaust? Hitler killed six million Jews in World War II."
Shutzer's point, however, misses its mark.
It is offensive and wrong to compare the systematic extermination of six million Jews (and another six million non-Jews) to the effects of anorexia and bulimia. Shutzer fails to realize the overwhelming difference between the two: one is self-imposed, the other is not.
The wan captives that the Allies liberated from concentration camps at the end of World War II were not that way in an attempt to be "thin and attractive." Dartmouth College is no Auschwitz. Attempts to construe it as such are not only inappropriate, they are derogatory to the millions who died or survived the horrors of genocide.
Yet Shutzer does not stop there. By comparing eating disorders to "date rape or racism," Shutzer cites a counterproductive example to illustrate her point. Date rape and racism are, again, imposed by the hands of others. A woman is not raped because she exercises too much.
Moreover, I would guess that very few women with eating disorders have had someone get up and move away from them on public transportation.
Perhaps it seems as if I am oversimplifying Shutzer's viewpoint. I am sure it is well-intentioned. However, as someone who has dealt with an eating disorder, she should know that it is a problem between the woman, her family and her friends. It is not an issue for the community-at-large to deal with.
Granted, we could all stand to be educated as to the dangers of eating disorders. But all of the town meetings, organized marches and candlelight vigils that Shutzer can conjure up will do little to prevent someone from restricting or purging. Education is the best solution available to combat eating disorders -- not invoking hot topics such as genocide, racism and rape to liven up an opinion piece in The Dartmouth.
I am fully aware of the realities of an eating disorder. Last year, I watched my younger sister transform from a vibrant, 112-pound track star to a sickly, 76-pound phantom in the space of about five months. I have endured enough hospitalizations and family therapy sessions to know that anorexia is not racism and that it is not genocide. The treatment's emphasis was that an eating disorder results from a woman's (or, less frequently, a man's) inability to cope with life's pressures. Admittedly, some eating disorders are brought about by rape or sexual abuse, but the majority of them are the result of a warped perception of reality.
Just as not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic, not every white, middle to upper-middle class over-achieving female is affected by anorexia, bulimia or compulsive over-eating (the last of which, curiously, is often not mentioned along with the other two because it inspires less sympathy, even though the causes are very similar). Granted, a society in which Kate Moss is labeled a cultural ideal is somewhat askew, but the fact remains that there is no Adolf Hitler calling for the systematic extermination of young Western women by forcing them to read "Seventeen" or "Glamour" until they decide starve themselves. A woman with anorexia can take anti-anxiety medication to concentrate better on beating her problem; a woman with bulimia can be given Prozac to help her outlook. There is, however, no convenient dosage for racism available at the local pharmacy. My advice to Shutzer is that the next time she tackles an issue, she chooses her similes a bit more carefully.
