CounterPunch
Weekend Edition
November 12 - 14, 2010
Running Into the Darkness
Anorexia and Capitalism 
By BRIAN McKENNA 
 
The anthropologist despairs as he watches a young native girl run from the 
dinner table, in fear of getting fat. She refuses to eat even a bite of lettuce 
and her weight is now down to 78, from 136. She is in a danger zone. Her organs 
are failing.

The father runs out to find her in the darkness, through the woods, following 
her tears. "Where are you, dear?"

On the TV, Portia de Rossi, the actress star of Ally McBeal, cries as she 
retells Oprah about her descent into anorexic madness. Portia was lucky. She 
had the money (which can be as high as $250,000) for good professional help at 
Monte Nido in California. They helped save her life. She tells her powerful 
story in her best-selling book, Unbearable Lightness (2010).

But this night the father screams into the night. The little native girl is not 
rich. Blue Cross and Blue Shield refuse to pay for this treatment which her 
pediatrician, nutritionist and therapist demand, with strongly worded letters.

They've been struck, bewitched. It is their fault. Die.

Abandoned, the family descends into a nightmare. 

full: http://www.counterpunch.org/mckenna11122010.html


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