"[F]rom it’s nineteenth-century emergence as a cultural phenomenon, anorexia has been a class-biased disorder, appearing predominantly among the daughters of families of relative affluence. The reasons for this are several. Slenderness and rejection of good have, of course, very different meanings in conditions of deprivation and scarcity than in those of plenty. Demonstrating an ability to “rise above the need to eat imparts moral or aesthetic superiority only where others are prone to overindulgence. Where people are barely managing to put nutritious food on the table, the fleshless, “dematerialized” body suggests death, not superior detachment, self control , or resistance to parental expectations. Moreover, the possibility of success in attaining dominant ideals (for example, that of the glamorous superwoman so many anoretics emulate) depends on certain material preconditions which economically struggling women lack; hence, they may be “protected” (so to speak) against eating disorders by their despair of ever embodying the images of feminine success that surround them."