>>THE
COLOR OF HUNGER, CONTINUED
Why do you use the term "eating problems" instead of "eating
disorders?"
BT: Racism, poverty,
homophobia or the stress of acculturation from immigration-those
are the disorders. Anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating
are very orderly, sane responses to those disorders. So
that's why I don't even use the word "disorder." I'm shifting
the focus away from the notion of eating problems as pathology,
and instead labeling forms of discrimination as pathological.
I even thought for a while that I should say "eating issues."
But I ended up using the term because eating problems do
become problems for women.
What
about perceptions that eating problems are linked to vanity
and appearance, rather than to trauma?
BT: It's perfectly acceptable for a woman at a lunch
table to say something like, "God, I really want to lose
five pounds," or "My dress doesn't fit right," or "I want
to go to the gym so I can look better." It's not nearly
as acceptable for that same woman to sit at a table and
say, "I got beat up last night," or "I'm really worried
about my son on the street." We need to figure out a way
to have the real conversations with each other, and to make
those as acceptable as ones about bodies and dieting.
One
thing I found really interesting was that you used the term
"body consciousness" rather than "body image."
BT: I would never have known to be critical of the concept
of body image until I was talking to an African-American
woman named Jocelyn, and she described her body image as
"just ashes up in the air...." It hit me that I had to start
way back and not assume that women are "in their bodies"
to begin with. For women who've been traumatized, issues
of embodiment aren't anything to take for granted. I had
to look at whether they felt comfortable residing in their
bodies, or just in part of their bodies; whether they considered
their bodies a friend or an enemy; whether their bodies
felt like safe places to be. These are things people who
haven't been traumatized don't consider: If you're used
to your home being in one place, it won't dawn on you what
it's like to be homeless.
You
would picture body issues as kind of a "homelessness" that
goes on until a woman becomes comfortable, or has a sense
of her body as a safe place?
BT: I was talking to some people once who couldn't get
their hands on what it meant to not live in your body. It's
very hard to understand unless you've been through it. One
of the images I use is, you're driving down the street to
go to your house, and you turn into what you thought was
your driveway, and the house has just completely disappeared.
You're gonna spend time going from one neighborhood to the
next going, "Did you see? Do you know what happened?" You're
gonna try to get a story of how it happened. Your life will
never be the same without that home, with all your things
in it. Women who have had to leave their bodies because
of trauma try to recreate a sense of home in their bodies.
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