Abstract
Media research on eating disorders usually analyzes how media construct normative notions of a thin female body, which fuel anorexia and bulimia. By focusing on news coverage of Karen Carpenter's anorexia and Princess Diana's bulimia I analyze how media representations of eating disorders construct normative notions of a healthy female self. Reporters framed Carpenter as a non-autonomous female who fell victim to the suburban mass culture and the U.S. conservative family values of the 1970s. Princess Diana was represented as the British New Labour flexible, self-transforming woman, having graduated from virgin princess to outspoken divorcee. The discussion shows how popular discourses on eating disorders repeat historically-specific and contradictory normative notions of masculine autonomy and feminine flexibility that inform anorexia and bulimia in the first place.
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