Michael Jackson's Hidden Eating Disorder: Breaking Down Stereotypes

In the later years of his career, Michael Jackson's life became unfortunately characterized by various scandals and legal troubles, as well as an ever-growing public concern with his physical appearance. Watching his face transform over time, we had a number of questions regarding his reported plastic surgeries, each one seemingly worse than the last. What happened to his face? Why did he enter court wearing a surgical mask? How did surgeons manage to construct a new nose after his previous nose collapsed? Why didn't he stop three, four, five noses ago?

If Jackson's apparent preoccupation and dissatisfaction with his appearance weren't proof enough that he was dealing with some rather serious body image issues, then the constant stress he was under, his bizarre eating habits and his waif-like frame should have clued the public into the fact that he was struggling with an eating disorder. Unfortunately in our culture, though we quickly jump to the conclusion that any thin or dieting female celebrity is starving herself without any other information to go on, we tend to overlook obvious symptoms in men. When we think of eating disorders - anorexia in particular - we usually envision a white, middle class and probably heterosexual female in her teens or twenties. Let's begin by breaking down these stereotypical characteristics and where they come from:

1) Gender: In our culture, women are socialized to remain small, reserved and quite while men must grow to be big and strong. The gender binary explains a lot about why women are shrinking and men are bulking up, but it doesn't explain other factors. Eating disorders don't develop purely out of cultural ideals, so we can't assume that the idealization of muscular men prevents them from developing eating disorders like anorexia.

2) Race: The idealized image of a white woman in our society is rather tiny, but women in the black community tend to be glorified for their curves. The assumption here is that black women will not want to be thin because that is not what their community values. This overlooks the obvious fact that the idealized woman in our society happens to be white, and that cultural conception of beauty penetrates racial barriers. The thin white woman doesn't mean black women aren't affected by our feminine ideal, it only means they're getting two messages from it: not only are you fat, you're not light enough, either.

3) Sexuality: Women do not starve to attract men. The simplicity and sexist assumptions of that reasoning absolutely astound me. It also doesn't take into consideration that eating disorders are quite prevalent in the gay male community, where a lot of emphasis is placed on body image.

4) Age: Many assume eating disorders are a "teen" thing that we simply "grow out of" as we mature. Not so. Eating disorders are psychological disorders, not a dieting fad that only naive, young girls play into.

Note: there are also other, lesser-known eating disorders that affect populations differently. Black women, for example, are 50% more likely to develop bulimia than white women. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to develop muscle dysmorphia.

These assumptions are problematic for a number of reasons, but I'll leave it at this: eating disorders are certainly, to some extent, a sociological and cultural problem, but they are far too complex and multi-faceted for us to assume that they only occur within specialized populations or under certain conditions.

Before returning to Michael Jackson, I'd like to point out that there are many celebrities who have admitted to suffering from eating disorders that don't fit the stereotypical mold, and although they are very much in the public eye, their issues are rarely as well known or as well publicized as, say, Karen Carpenter or Mary-Kate Olsen. Elton John, a gay male, suffered from bulimia. Daniel Johns, another male, had a very public battle with anorexia - and even wrote a song about it! Oprah Winfrey, Paula Abdul, Whitney Houston and even Janet Jackson have all admitted to struggling with eating disorders. This still comes as a shock to many.

You're probably thinking I'm about to analyze the Jackson family and compare Michael to his sister. Truth is, I haven't even gotten to the real kicker. Ready for this? Even Michael Jackson himself admitted to having an eating disorder! When opening up about his abusive father, Jackson traced his eating issues back to age seven, when his childhood bulimia first became a problem. Even so, when he became very frail and weak in his adult life, reportedly due to a very restrictive diet, few people managed to make the connection. Why? Because black men (insert skin-bleaching joke here) don't develop eating disorders. If Jackson were a white woman (insert second skin-bleaching joke here), the media would have been all over this information. Even the Olsen twins could have escaped the tabloids.

I'm not suggesting that having the tabloids obsess over anyone's eating disorder is a positive thing, and it certainly wouldn't have helped Jackson's stress level. However, the media clearly has an enormous effect on how we conceptualize eating disorders, and their coverage of specific celebrities contributes to a set of problematic stereotypes that prevent people in Jackson's situation from seeking help. Even some therapists display a bias when treating patients because of the assumption that only white women have eating disorders. Despite the cocktail of various medications and anti-depressants Michael Jackson was taking at the time of his death, he certainly was not receiving the treatment he needed. Amidst discussion of his autopsy, his will, the funeral arrangements and other concerns still surrounding his death, my main question is this: had doctors recognized and treated Michael Jackson for the eating disorder he was clearly suffering from, might he be alive today?