Philosopher Christina Van Dyke will speak on “Adding Fuel to the Fire? Orthorexia and Gendered Eating” at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11, in Multipurpose Classroom Building Room 106. The free colloquium is presented by the student Philosophy Club and the Department of Philosophy.
Orthorexia is an obsession with maintaining the perfect diet for optimal health. Whereas people with anorexia are obsessed with the quantity of the food they eat, people with orthorexia are fixated on the quality of the food they eat.
In contrast to anorexia, which disproportionately affects young women, orthorexia appears to affect men and women at roughly equal rates. At the same time, gendered eating norms play into the manifestation of orthorexia. Ideals of health are different for men and women: health for men is linked to strength and endurance, while for women it is equated with attractiveness (i.e., thinness) and competence.
These differences are important when asking why the quest for a healthy diet might turn destructive. Van Dyke suggests that the root answer to this question lies in philosophical traditions that seek to transcend (rather than embrace) the body. In short, orthorexia is just the newest manifestation of body-loathing. This recognition gives a strong reason to resist cultural assignations of certain foods as “good” or “bad” and to push hard against the force those terms acquire in the endless quest for “healthy living.”
Van Dyke is a professor of philosophy and gender studies at Calvin College, where she earned her B.A. in philosophy and classical civilization. She went on to earn both her M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy at Cornell University. Her academic interests include the philosophy of gender, philosophy of mind and metaphysics, medieval philosophy and ancient philosophy. She is the author of “The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy” and co-author of “Aquinas’s Ethics: Metaphysical Foundations, Moral Theory and Theological Context.”
If you have questions about this event, email JacobMorris1@u.boisestate.edu or briankierland@boisestate.edu.
BY: KATHLEEN TUCK PUBLISHED 6:38 AM / NOVEMBER 2, 2016