The Introduction states that in this essay "Ellen Carter looks at an aspect of mental health representation."
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Eating disorders (EDs) and body image concerns are cultural and societal issues of growing contemporary significance. [...] In this essay I compare real world data on EDs with fictional depictions and argue that these novels perpetuate inaccurate cultural norms about "good" EDs and patients, as well as portraying a rosier-than-reality impact on long-term mental and physical health. In other words, just as the romance genre idealizes intimate relationships, these novels idealize EDs.
Corpus and Methodology
I analyzed twenty-one contemporary romance novels or series published between 2001 and 2019, each of which has a main character with an ED. (136)
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ED prevalence in my corpus does not match the pattern found in real populations, with anorexia over-represented. (137)
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Within my corpus of twenty-one novels, twelve open with the character in recovery, eight are in denial, and in only one book does the ED begin during the narrative. (140)
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I've not added tags for all the authors in Carter's corpus, just for the ones where there was somewhat lengthier (albeit still pretty short) discussion of their book and/or the author.
The Introduction states that in this essay "Ellen Carter looks at an aspect of mental health representation."
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I've not added tags for all the authors in Carter's corpus, just for the ones where there was somewhat lengthier (albeit still pretty short) discussion of their book and/or the author.