The Age of Anorexia and the Weight of the Holocaust

This essay analyzes the rise of anorexia nervosa during the 1980s, a decade sometimes called the Age of Anorexia, by focusing on a metaphor that became widespread at the time: the anorexic girl as concentration camp inmate. The article traces the metaphor to its origins in postwar medical research, mostly carried out by Jewish doctors working in the aftermath of the Holocaust, on the long-term psychological and physiological impacts of extreme hunger. It then explores the movement of the metaphor into the American mainstream, arguing that describing the anorexic girl as a concentration camp inmate expressed a fear of extermination on the part of the white middle class. This metaphor resonated and became widespread because it linked two contemporaneous conversations taking place in the public sphere at this time: the growth in awareness of anorexia nervosa as a social threat, and the rise in Holocaust consciousness in the American mainstream. By historicizing the historical context out of which a metaphor emerged and then the processes by which it became naturalized, this essay reveals the contingency of medical constructions of illness, while suggesting the significance of disease models for understanding social and cultural concerns more broadly.