Sept. 21, 2022 12:35 p.m. ET
In her review of Rachel Aviv’s “Strangers to Ourselves” (Books, September 17), Elizabeth Winkler claims that anorexia nervosa “is a disorder typically induced by reading magazines that present thinness as the ideal of femininity.” This statement is strongly reductive. The exact cause of anorexia is not known, and in any case there can be a number of contributing factors, including a variety of psychological issues and genetic background.
In addition, there are a variety of factors that can serve as a catalyst for the development of an eating disorder in certain individuals, but that does not mean that these factors are causal. For example, I have treated clients who described how they started out as vegetarians but then became increasingly rigid about their diet. This is not proof that vegetarianism can cause an eating disorder.
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