“What do you mean by Eating Disorder?”
Hornbacher recollects, “Jane in the emergency room, the doctor took her pulse again and ignored me first -in bemusement, then in irritation-as I asked him to please give her an EKG, take her blood pressure sitting and standing, check her electrolytes. He turned to me finally, after poking her here and there, and said, “Excuse me, miss, but I’m the doctor.” I said yes, but -He waved me away and asked Jane how she felt. She looked at me. Asking an anoretic how she feels is an exercise in futility. I said, “Listen, she's got an eating disorder. Please just take the tests.” The doctor, impatient, said, “What do you mean by eating disorder?”
The doctor’s query is ironic considering that his training relates to medical issues comprising eating disorders. The interrogation conjectures that the doctor is unacquainted with eating disorders. Hornbacher’s hint about Jane’s indisposition would have guided the doctor on the superlative medication to handle her. The doctor’s inquiry indicates that some medical doctors are oblivious of eating disorders which would jeopardize the lives of the patients in scenario where the uninformed doctor does not discriminate what should be performed to liberate a patient. Hornbacher, who does not have any medical expertise, is more conversant than the doctor; her acquaintance is ascribed to experience.
Hornbacher’s Mother
Hornbacher upholds, “I was never normal about food, even as a baby. My mother was unable to breast-feed me because it made her feel as if she were being devoured. I was allergic to cow's milk, soy milk, rice milk. My parents had to feed me a vile concoction of ground lamb and goat's milk that made them both positively ill. Apparently I guzzled it up. Later they gave me orange juice in a bottle, which rotted my teeth. I suspect that I may not even have been normal about food in utero; my mother's eating habits verge on the bizarre.” Hornbacher’s mother’s reluctance to breastfeed Hornbacher is ironic considering that breastfeeding is instinctively maternal approach of connecting with and nurturing a new-born. Undoubtedly, Hornbacher’s mother may have blatantly instigated Hornbacher’s eating disorders.
'Hugs and Kisses'
Hornbacher deduces, “Hugs are difficult, however. Kissing is perhaps more intimate than sex itself. Similarly, hugs imply emotional, rather than sexual, intimacy. They are a gesture from one person to another of nonsexual caring, and the idea of being cared for in a nonsexual way was not something I could understand. Contact with another person reminds you that you are also a person, and implies that someone cares about you as such. This felt to me profoundly false, and I felt I did not, in any way, warrant such care, such contact. Contact with another body reminds you that you have a body, a fact you are trying very hard to forget.”
Hugs are not supposed to be problematic for they illustrate cordiality and admiration. Besides, coitus is more passionate than kissing due to the concentration of bodily exchange and sensations that are awakened. Hornbacher’s ironic assessments vis-à-vis kisses and hugs accentuate the implications of eating disorders on the patients’ sensations. Evidently, Hornbacher regards hugs as grim because they are a signal of their humanity, which is antagonistic to her perception of super-humanity.
