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Anorexia Nervosa

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Anorexia nervosa is a complex and severe eating disorder characterized by an intense fear of weight gain, an unrelenting pursuit of thinness, and a distorted body image. It often leads to dangerously low body weight relative to an individual's age and height. This disorder is marked by significant physical and psychological consequences, making it one of the most life-threatening psychiatric illnesses.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 27, 2026

Assessing Activity-based Anorexia in Mice

Assessing Activity-based Anorexia in Mice

Published on: May 14, 2018

Being anorexic: hunger, subjectivity, and embodied morality.

Sigal Gooldin¹

¹Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Cultural Studies Program, Hebrew University.

Medical Anthropology Quarterly

|November 19, 2008

Summary

This study reveals how women with anorexia nervosa construct a heroic moral subjectivity through embodied experiences and hunger. Ethnographic findings offer an insider

Area of Science:

Anthropology
Sociology
Feminist Epistemology
Psychology

Background:

Critical feminist epistemology politicizes anorexia but offers limited insight into lived, embodied experiences.
Autobiographical accounts provide emic perspectives but lack engagement with etic theoretical frameworks.
A gap exists in understanding the phenomenological and semiotic processes of anorexia from an insider's viewpoint.

Purpose of the Study:

To bridge the gap between theoretical and lived experiences of anorexia nervosa.
To explore anorexia through an anthropological lens, focusing on situated, embodied knowledge.
To understand the construction of moral subjectivity within the lived experience of anorexia.

Main Methods:

Ethnographic study involving young women diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.

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Last Updated: Jun 27, 2026

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Control of Eating Behavior Using a Novel Feedback System

Published on: May 8, 2018

Data collection from an outpatient hospital unit in Israel.

Analysis of embodied realities and phenomenological experiences.

Main Results:

Anorexic women actively construct a "heroic moral subjectivity."
The experience of hunger is central to this subjectivity.
Everyday practices acquire "out-of-the-ordinary" meanings within this context.

Conclusions:

An anthropological perspective reveals the concrete ways culture shapes anorexia.
Detailed ethnography is crucial for understanding the development of heroic subjectivity.
Gaps between feminist and anorexic narratives impact therapeutic encounters.