How do extreme sports and anorexia/bulimia both resist and conform to popular culture?
How are meanings surrounding the behavior of anorexics/bulimics and those who engage in extreme sports socially producted?
Are those who engage in extreme sports and/or anorexia/bulimia confined by their behavior in any way? Does this very behavior that has the potential to confine people also help these individuals to develop and grow?
If we both make and are made by culture, why are those with anorexia and bulimia denied their own agency and pathologized?
Just curious as to what everyone thinks of these questions posted above. Maybe one cannot even understand the behaviors and emotions behind eating irregularities and extreme sports unless one has been engaged in the behavior themselves...
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5 comments:
I think the comparison you draw is very interesting, and I can see a common thread--bulimics and anorexics can die from their behavior, and so can people who participate in extreme sports.
Your final question as to why anorexics/bulimics are pathologized is quite provocative, but I think that's because eating disorders ARE pathological.
Most anorexics and bulimics do choose to have an eating disorder (no one FORCES them not to eat), but their free agency is not taken away by society, it's taken away by their pathology.
They don't see themselves as they really are--on the brink of death... they see themselves in a highly negative light (70 pounds and still a fat cow)... which IS pathological. It is not rational and it is certainly NOT accurate.
People who engage in extreme sports do not see themselves as something they are not (i.e. a bird when they are clearly a human being)--they're doing it for adrenaline and the rush.
Which may, or may not, be a pathology--I personally don't think that it is, I think MOST people who skydive can stop any time they want, and usually it doesn't consume their lives.
Not so with anorexics and bulimics. If they CAN stop... it is a constant struggle for the rest of their lives--and when they fall into the pathology, it completely consumes their lives.
As the first person to post here has pointed out it is not a disease that causes someone to want to experience extreme methods of entertaining themselves. Where as there are not many people who can easily go in and out of anorexia with any choice in the matter.
Besides that flaw I think it is safe to say that there are many aspects of cultural expression that are not deemed safe or are taboo to some other sector of society. It is the nature of culture (especially popular culture) to test boundaries and limits of humanity and to do this in ways that might not be acceptable to larger sections of society. Judging whether these activities should be stopped or not is something that can only be done if you are willing to accept the idea that there are universal truths and morals that should be applied to everyone. A good one might be: you should not kill someone else. So what criteria do you feel skydiving meets in the list of your morals or truths that you can deem it the same as a pathological illness?
That was PopThor
I hope I can make my point clearly as this is an issue that is easier to discuss then write, plus I'm constantly being distracted here at work from writing this.
I agree with a lot of what was said in the previous posts but to further those comments, Extreme sports push the body to the limit and can result in death just as an eating disorder but with many extreme sports, it pushes the body to the extreme of health and physical ability - such as rock climbing - one must develop the body to it's upmost potential in strength, adurance, fitness, ect in a way that is healthy - lean muscle mass, eating right,even a hieghtened self esteem. Eating diorders destroy the body (whether the person with it realizes it or not) - its goal is not to achieve the utmost physical ability and health, it's a psychological problem that cause one to neglect their body and detroy it from within. Also with extreme sports, those who pariticipate are not trying to fit into a "societal norm" as extreme sports is still not seen as mainstream, whereas how we look and being thin is in our society...I can name you so many people who are on diets but very few who engage or have any interest in extreme sports.
On the other hand, it is an interesting argument because in many aspects both have very real psychological components to it. One comment was made that people who skydive can stop whenever they want....I disagree as I feel anyone can become addicted to any behavior. Maybe they don't become addicted to the actual sport but to the rush it causes and they will go to great lengths to experience this "high" as much as possible. Yes, it doesnt consume their day in and day out life as an eating disorder but it can become an addiction of it's own. In our society we look at addictions to substances not to the greater picture...while someone can be addicted to drugs, alcohol, food (or lack of), caffeine, people also get addicted to things like sex, relationships,working out, the internet, gambling, gaming...it's all in the rush and feeling each of these activities enacts in the body which can cause someone to let it take hold of their life and go to a complete extreme in which is destroys so many other areas of their lives not just their physical body. Extreme sports may very well become an addicting behavior just like a woman whose eating disorder is controling her life.
I think that a couple of the above posts make the really valid point about addiction...that it is both psychological and physical. I have been around a lot of extreme sport enthusiasts who can't be without their "practice" no matter what is going on. If you have someone so devoted to say cycling that they have to take a ride every day no matter what and that they forego interaction with their families and put their job in jeopardy to do it...looks a lot like eating disorders to me. Lots of folks who ultimately do serious amatuer sports also end up hurting themselves by using steroids or pushing their physical limits in ways that "abuse" their bodies. How many knee surgeries do you have to have before you hang up your tennies and start to exercise reasonably? I think the 40 yr old cyclist who thinks he can reasonably use Lance Armstrong's time for riding 100 miles in the Tour de France as his own goal in his next century ride is just as deluded as the 70lb. anorexic. poppat
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