Anorexia: A “losing” strategy?

Several theorists have tried to model anorexia on Wasser and Barash’s (1983) “reproductive suppression model” (RSM). According to the RSM, individual females adaptively suppress their reproductive functioning under conditions of social or physiological stress. From this perspective, mild anorexia is viewed as an adaptive response to modern conditions; more severe anorexia is viewed as an adaptation gone awry. Previous models have not, however, examined the full richness of the RSM. Specifically, Wasser and Barash documented not only self-imposed reproductive suppression, but also manipulative reproductive suppression of subordinate females by dominants. I propose that the modern “epidemic” of anorexia is explained neither by adaptive self-suppression nor by environmental mismatch (an adaptation gone awry); I propose that the “epidemic” levels of anorexia seen in modern western society are a direct consequence of intrasexual competition, the scope of which has been enhanced by the power and reach of modern communications media. According to this perspective, anorexia, even in its mild forms, is a manipulative strategy imposed on subordinates by dominants. Anorexia is, in both senses, a “losing” strategy. Linda Mealey developed the intrasexual manipulation model of anorexia while on a three-year stint in the psychology department of the University of Queensland; she is currently at the College of St. Benedict in central Minnesota, where she is associate professor of psychology. She is President of the International Society for Human Ethology, a councilor of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, on the editorial board of Politics and the Life Sciences, and chair of the 1999 and 2000 Aaron Beck New Investigator Award Committee (sponsored by ASCAP: Across Species Comparisons and Psychiatry).