Anorexia - too complex an issue to simply blame mums.

摘要

There has been an increasing number of alarming press articles in recent months suggesting a link between mother–daughter relationships and eating behaviour. Headlines such as ‘Want to do your chubby daughter a favour? Tell her she’s fat’ (The Daily Mail 2010b), ‘Dieting just like mum’ (The Daily Mail 2010a), ‘What lies behind anorexia’ (The Times 2011) and ‘How your hang-ups hurt kids’ (The Sun 2011), all had one theme in common: the perceived role that a mother can have in shaping her daughter’s relationship with food. Sadly, this media interest appears to have arisen as a consequence of the recent death of Isabelle Caro. Isabelle had been battling the eating disorder anorexia nervosa for many years, which the media linked with her experiences during childhood. As a consequence of her struggles, she became an avid campaigner against the disease, which sadly culminated in her untimely death at the end of last year. Within 4 months of her death, Isabelle’s mother committed suicide. The media latched onto this story in varying degrees. Some articles highlighted the negative effect of the ‘blame game’, for example, The Times modern article ‘What lies behind anorexia’, whereas others compassionately documented the heartbreak that her mother must have felt, such as the Observer article ‘It’s too simplistic to blame mothers for anorexia’ (Observer 2011). Horrifyingly, in some articles, accusations were made, whereby the story was reported with the following headline: ‘Guilty mother of dead anorexic model Isabelle Caro commits suicide’ (Daily Mail 2011).