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Many anoretics uphold the belief that they are weighed upon by sins, �bad-dirty-wrong-evil� (Wasted 103) contained within them that they must somehow eradicate. � [Anoretics hold] the belief that [they] are so evil as to deserve starvation and any other form of self-mutilation� (Wasted 92). To them, it seems as if depriving themselves, denying themselves any pleasure, becoming skeletal, is the only way to alleviate this guilt. �Carving away at the body to��symbolically and literally��carve away at an imperfect soul� (Wasted 93). This is often associated with an abnormal fear of sexuality. In a perhaps related factor, anorexia often appears to be introduced at the onset of puberty as a desire to return to a childhood. This guilt comes hand and hand with desires to lift free of the body itself, feeling it to be an obstruction on their intellect. Often present is a wish to be free of emotions: to be just intellect, a �pure mind� (Wasted 231). This is perhaps encouraged, if not completely produced by, the ideas that women are less intellectual and more emotional, which correlates with the �competition� issue. Regardless, this heightened sense of guilt at having emotions is certainly not normal, and is highly indicative of underlying neuroses. Many equate the body and its needs with emotions and being emotionally needy; a desire to eliminate emotional need can be translated into a desire to eliminate the need for food. The issue of �purity� versus �impurity� is certainly at play; many anoretics reference it. �I dream of fairies, rib cages like baskets, flitting around my house. They are skeletal, they are beautiful and perfectly pure. I want to be like them,� writes an anorexic girl at www.anorexicweb.com. �[She is] withdrawn, reserved, cold, wholly obsessed in her own obsession, perfectly pure,� describes Marya Hornbacher of the desirable anorexic stereotype; �I want to be a perfect dying creature,� writes another anoretic�the premise being that they will achieve purity and redemption through their sufferings, as a reward. This pathological preoccupation with the ideas of purity and guilt is clearly another psychological cause of eating disorders.
In addition, there is a certain suicidal aspect of anorexia: an obsession with death, a love of denying the self, and tendencies toward sadomasochism and self-mutilation. A high percentage of anoretics are also self-mutilators (www.anorexicweb.com), and there have been definite comparisons: self-inflicted pain on the body, punishment, eradication of guilt through endurance of pain. �[A] twisted autoerotic life going on, be both a top and a bottom, and experience both at once: the pleasure of beating the hell out of a body shackled at the wrists, and the pleasure of being the body and knowing that you deserve every blow� (Wasted 124). In addition, the idea of death is also held in high regard by those eating-disordered. Anorexia is, in general, considered by those who examine it to be a slow form of suicide, which is a psychological problem; suicide attempts would certainly be diagnosed by any psychologist as representational of psychological illness. Thus, eating disorders are psychological afflictions presented in a different form, influenced by a preexisting mental makeup and having very little, if anything, to do with external circumstances. Suicidal impulses are not commonly considered to be a result of outside influences but rather an internal imbalance; likewise, neither is anorexia.
In conclusion, there are seemingly endless answers to the question �Why anorexia?�. These answers do, however, fall into the two basic categories: cultural influences and underlying psychological influences. There are strong cases for each, but I personally believe that the category of psychological influences is the more generally correct answer. While many eating disorders in the present day may well be strongly influenced by the culture, a psychological cause is a more compelling argument for the question at hand.
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