Orders of Eating and Eating Disorders: Food, Bodies and Anorexia Nervosa in the German Democratic Republic, 1949-1990 Neula Kerr-Boyle University College London PhD Thesis 2 I, Neula Kerr-Boyle, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. _______________________ 3 Abstract This thesis is an historical study of anorexia nervosa in the German Democratic Republic. Its central premise is that any understanding of the existence of anorexia nervosa must be predicated upon an investigation of the material conditions, cultural discourses and social practices surrounding eating and the body, and the ways in which these conditions, discourses and practices constructed (gendered) subjectivities and behaviours. The thesis draws on archival material, questionnaires and oral history interviews addressing the topics of food, health and bodies, as well as personal experiences of self-starvation. The thesis tests and contests current socio-cultural approaches to anorexia nervosa which locate it within a specifically capitalist context of abundance, linking it not only to the economic imperatives of capitalist industries but also to societal gender structures. The GDR presents a very different socio-cultural context. Not only did it have a “shortage economy” with an absence of capitalist industries, but the economic position of women was different from that of their western counterparts, with over 90% of them in paid employment by the end of the 1980s. This study also provides new ways of understanding the GDR by teasing out the complex interactions between Nazi and pre-Nazi cultural legacies, new socialist ideas and values, and western cultural influences in the production of East German discourses and practices relating to eating and the body. By exploring the production of these discourses and practices, and the interactions between government propaganda, popular culture and the medical and scientific professions, the thesis provides an analysis of the inter-connectedness of body, self and society in the GDR, 1949-1990. 4 Table of Contents List of figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6 List of abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9 Chapter 1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………… 11 Socio-Cultural Approaches to Anorexia Nervosa…………………………....... 14 Testing and Contesting Socio-Cultural Approaches to Anorexia Nervosa……………………………………………………………………………… 22 Contribution to Historical Scholarship on the GDR…………………….......... 26 Methodology and Sources…………………………………………………………………. 30 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………. 36 Chapter 2 Food and Cultures of Eating………………………………………………………......... 37 Queues, Shortages and Plenty…………………………………………………............ 38 A Woman’s Place is in the Factory?........................................................ 50 Food as Emotional Weapon……………………………………………………............. 58 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….......... 62 Chapter 3 “Socialist Bodies/Socialist Personalities”: Health Propaganda and Discursive Constructions of the “Normal Weight” and “Overweight” Body…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 64 Dominant Conceptions of Health and Approaches to Healthcare…….... 65 Concerns about Obesity………………………………………………………………........ 71 Discursive Constructions of the “Normal Weight” and “Overweight” Body………………........................................................................................ 76 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….................. 108 5 Chapter 4 Discourses and Cultures of Dieting……………………………………………………. 111 The Re-emergence of Dieting Discourses in the 1950s.......................... 112 How to be a “Socialist Dieter”: State-Propagated Dieting Discourses... 115 Cultures of Dieting in the 1970s and 1980s………………………................... 126 Conclusion………………………………………………………………............................ 152 Chapter 5 Anorexia Nervosa: Psychiatric Discourses and Treatments……………… 154 Anorexia Nervosa in German-language Medical and Psychiatric Literature, 1873-1945……………………………………………………………………….... 155 Psychiatric Discourses and Treatments, 1945-1990……………………………. 158 Relaying Discourses about Anorexia Nervosa to the East German Public in the 1980s……………………………………………………………................... 194 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………….. 200 Chapter 6 Personal Experiences and Popular Perceptions of Self-Starvation……. 203 Oral History: Theory and Practice……………………………………………….......... 208 Memories of Medical Intervention in Cases of Self-Starvation……......... 215 Interviewees’ Understandings of Why Their Self-Starving Behaviour Began………………………………………………………………………………… 222 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………. 245 Chapter 7 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………......... 248 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 256 “Sozialistische Magersucht”, Berliner Zeitung, 21/22 August 2010……………………………. 257 Questionnaire conducted in Dresden and Leipzig……………………………………………………… 258 Information sheet for interviewees…………………………………………………………………………… 268 Question template for interviews conducted with former East German citizens who self-starved between 1949 and 1990………………………….……………………………………………… 269 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………................................. 271 6 List of Figures Figure 1 Table showing percentage of households from which one or more family members had eaten a main meal in a restaurant in the previous working week (1972, 1976 and 1980)………......................... 43 Figure 2 Table showing percentage of households from which one or more family members had eaten a weekend lunch in a restaurant in the previous four weeks (1972, 1976 and 1980)…………………………………… 43 Figure 3 Table showing percentage of questionnaire respondents who said they had never wasted food in the 1980s (according to year of birth)…................................................................................................ 47 Figure 4 Table showing sex of person primarily responsible for daily grocery shopping (1978 and 1980)……………………………………………………………… 53 Figure 5 Table showing percentage of questionnaire respondents who said they shopped for food or cooked when they were children in the GDR (according to sex)…………………………………………………………………… 54 Figure 6 Advertisement for Bino, 1958………………………………………………………… 56 Figure 7 Illustration from Das Magazin, 1984……………………………………………… 57 Figure 8 Health propaganda poster, 1960-1962………………………………………….. 78 Figure 9 Health propaganda poster, 1960-1962………………………………………….. 86 Figure 10 Illustration from the health propaganda film, Fettsucht, 1965………. 95 Figure 11 Illustration from Tribüne, 1966………………………………………………………. 95 Figure 12 Illustration from the slimming guide, Schlank lebt sich’s besser, 1972………………………………………………………………………………………………. 96 Figure 13 Health propaganda poster, 1960-1962………………………………………… 101 Figure 14 Health propaganda poster, 1965…………………………………………………. 103 Figure 15 Illustration from Für Dich, 1975…………………………………………………… 103 Figure 16 Illustration from Neues Deutschland, 1970………………………………….. 104 Figure 17 Illustrations from Ernährung und Gesundheit: Was jeder von der Ernährung wissen sollte, undated………………………………………………… 104 7 Figure 18 Advertisement for Fucovesin slimming dragées, 1955……………….. 114 Figure 19 Advertisement for Heibol slimming tea, 1957……………………………. 114 Figure 20 Illustration from Für Dich, 1985…………………………………………………. 125 Figure 21 Table showing percentage agreeing to the statement “I regularly pay attention to ensuring that I do not put on weight”, 1987……. 130 Figure 22 Table showing percentage agreeing to the statement “I feel better in myself when I do not eat too much”, 1987………………….. 130 Figure 23 Table showing percentage agreeing to the statement “When choosing meals, I think about my health or my weight”, 1987…… 130 Figure 24 Illustration from Für Dich, 1975…………………………………………………. 142 Figure 25 Illustration from Für Dich, 1973…………………………………………………. 143 Figure 26 Illustration from Für Dich, 1971…………………………………………………. 143 Figure 27 Illustration from Für Dich, 1979…………………………………………………. 143 Figure 28 Illustration from Für Dich, 1973…………………………………………………. 144 Figure 29 Illustration from Für Dich, 1982…………………………………………………. 144 Figure 30 Illustration from Die Frau von heute, 1956………………………………… 145 Figure 31 Illustration from Für Dich, 1987…………………………………………………. 146 Figure 32 Illustration from Das Magazin, 1956…………………………………………. 146 8 List of Abbreviations BArch Bundesarchiv (Federal Archive) BZ Arch Berliner Zeitung Archiv (Berliner Zeitung Archive) CVD Cardiovascular disease DEFA Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (German Film Studios) DHMD Arch Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden Archiv (German Hygiene Museum Dresden Archive) DIfE Arch Deutsches Institut für Ernährungsforschung Archiv (German Institute for Nutrition Research Archive) DFD Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands (Democratic German Women’s Association) DSM-III-R Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (revised third edition, 1987) DTSB Deutscher Turn- und Sportbund (German Gymnastics and Sports Association) EAT Eating Attitudes Test EDI Eating Disorder Inventory FDGB Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (Free German Trade Union) FDJ Freie Deutscher Jugend (Free German Youth) FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) GÄP Gesellschaft für Ärztliche Psychotherapie (Society for Medical Psychotherapy) GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany) MMPI Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory SächsHStA