When I saw an article called "The Daisy Duke Diet" in my newsfeed, I elected not to read it, figuring it was the standard drivel. However, I was wrong. What was that I said about assuming making an ass out of "u" and me?

Thanks to Tiptoe, I decided to read the article and was pleasantly surprised to the point of astonishment. Not only did it thoroughly debunk the idea of models causing eating disorders, it included some of the latest research explained rather well.

If it isn’t skinny models, what’s the cause? In the last dozen years or so, scientists have linked anorexia to many different physiological conditions: high levels of estrogen in the womb; low levels of serotonin in the brain; a genetic mutation; overactivity by dopamine receptors; a general tendency toward anxiety and obsessionality; high age at menarche; elevated amounts of a mysterious peptide called CART; autism (which is underdiagnosed in girls, perhaps because it sometimes manifests itself in the form of eating disorders); premature birth or other birth complications; irregular activity in the insular cortex of the brain; post-traumatic stress disorder; an autoimmune disorder affecting the hypothalamus and pituitary gland; variations in the structure of the anterior ventral striatum (the brain region responsible for emotional responses); and even being born in June (seriously — one theory is that a winter-type disease in the mother at a certain vulnerable point during the pregnancy is responsible). Some of these causes may overlap with one another, but biomedical researchers are virtually unanimous that anorexia has physical roots, though the mechanism remains poorly understood.

Writer Fred Schwartz concludes that

Anorexia is a dreadful disease, and still poorly understood. If the growing scientific knowledge about it can be pieced together, we may eventually learn to identify, prevent, treat, and even cure it. But political activists do not help its sufferers when they oversimplify a complicated condition and blame it on their stock assortment of evil forces in American society.

Keep in mind that the National Review is a conservative magazine. I don't think big business and the beauty industry are pure innocent things being targeted by evil people trying to pin the blame for eating disorders. I do think their messages are harmful. I do think we need to do something about it.

I just don't think they cause eating disorders.