I read an interview in the New York Times with Susie Orbach, author of Fat is a Feminist Issue and Hunger Strike, and the newly released Bodies. Although I don't agree with her assertion that feminism will 'solve' eating disorders (as EDs are biologically based mental illnesses), I do believe that they are a feminist issue. Why? Eating disorders do affect women which makes them a feminist issue.

And I think many of her points are relevant to today's society: that corporations stand to make a lot of money when women hate their appearance. Also that a pervasive dissatisfaction with your appearance ultimately takes away from our culture. Who knows what things I might have thought if I weren't preoccupied with food and weight.

What Orbach touches on, but doesn't expressly say, is that we are equating what you look like with who you are as a person. Think about the literature on obesity. "Fat" doesn't just mean "more adipose tissue." On a cultural level, "fat" means "lazy," "no willpower," "gluttonous," "stupid," etc.