Columbia Hunger Striker Ex-Anorexic, Gandhi Scholar Joins Strike, Everyone Perplexed
So, remember how we made those pro-ana jokes about the Columbia hunger strikers, whose demands were so vague we figured they were just anorexic kids looking for attention? Upon the hospitalization last night of hunger striker Aretha Choi, Barnard ’10, an article from last spring’s Audrey (an Asian-American women’s magazine) came to light:
Aretha Choi, a Korean American freshman at Barnard College in New York City, began watching her weight in middle school. … By her junior year [of high school], she was anorexic. At 5-foot-7, she withered to 90 pounds. Doctors pleaded with her to be hospitalized…
Oh. Shit.
Aretha’s post-strike statement expressed shame and invoked God in the name of starvation-related-medical catastrophe:
I felt utterly ashamed and I felt that I had let the four other strikers, the many supporters, and myself down. Only 4 days? Only 4 days? Only 4 days? That was the question plaguing me until I was laying with fluids running into my arm.
Lying in the starchy hospital bed, I was covered in self-disappointment. I could not help but wish God had given me more strength so that my body would have held out longer. I wanted to go back out to the tents. I felt like I had given up.
Does this mean Aretha’s “supporters” were actually “enablers”? Speaking of which, how weird is it that Gandhian scholar and Barnard professor Dennis Dalton joined the strike? Having previously starved in protest of noble causes like ending apartheid, Prof. Dalton now seals his activism and physical wellbeing with a group of eating disordered undergrads. Must take the winds out of the sails a little, huh.
After the jump: Aretha-relevant portion of the article (including some damning Phillips-Andover discussion), which is actually pretty heartbreaking.
The White Standard from “Feeding on Stereotypes,” Audrey Apr/May 2007
Medical professionals disagree about the causes of eating disorders in Asian Americans, but recent research points to distinct trends. In the latter part of the 20th century and in the last decade in particular, the globalization of Western notions of beauty has changed the way developed Asian countries view thinness. While many Asian women were once admired for their fuller figures and faces, Hall says today many feel pressure to look like blonde, blue-eyed celebrities. Unable to change their Asian features without footing high bills for plastic surgery, some focus on the easiest thing they can control: their weight.
“It’s definitely a problem that’s overlooked,” says Lynda Yoshikawa, a Japanese American counselor at San Jose State University and a member of the AAPA. “The propensity for high body dissatisfaction is definitely there.”
“The white American woman is considered the ideal body type,” Hall explains. “And ethnic women are further away from that ideal. Weight is an issue, but it’s not the only issue. For Asian women, it’s eyes, nose, legs and butt.”
For many young Asian Americans, discomfort with their Asian features can take a dangerous toll. Aretha Choi, a Korean American freshman at Barnard College in New York City, began watching her weight in middle school. Aretha went to an all-white school in Denver, Colo., where her broad, pale cheeks and straight black hair stood out among her classmates. “In seventh grade I realized I was different,” says the slender 18-year-old during a study break at a college cafe. “I didn’t look like Britney Spears, I didn’t have blonde hair. Physically, I couldn’t embody that, so the next best thing was to be skinny.” In Denver, Aretha’s sense of identity was in perpetual conflict. Her parents, both first-generation Korean immigrants, expected her to abide by Korean customs at home. But at school she was exposed to different kinds of culturally appropriate behavior. Times were confusing, says Aretha, but for the most part she was able to balance both cultural demands.
But in the ninth grade Aretha left home for Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and things began to fall apart. Aretha found her move particularly jarring. She couldn’t eat Korean food; she couldn’t speak Korean at home. For the first time, she was consumed by American culture. “Korean culture was so present that it strained my interactions with the outside world,” explains Aretha. At the same time, she became increasingly insecure about her appearance. But unlike her peers, it wasn’t her thighs or her waistline that was bothering her – it was her Asian facial features. “I thought if I shrunk everything, my face would look smaller – more proportional, more Western,” she says.
Aretha began to diet as soon as she arrived at Phillips. By her junior year, she was anorexic. At 5-foot-7, she withered to 90 pounds. Doctors pleaded with her to be hospitalized, but she refused. “I lost my period,” she says. “My body was wasting away.”
Now recovered from anorexia, Aretha is quick to note that her parents never pressured her about weight. Many Korean American women, she says, are not so lucky. “A long time ago Koreans believed that a rounder face had a lot of blessings,” she says. “But at some point the emphasis on being thin became very, very deeply ingrained in Korean culture.”
Korea, a country that idolized full-figured women up until the 1970s, is one of many industrialized Asian countries that saw its beauty standards change after opening its media to foreign-influenced programming. Recently, the number of Korean women seeking Western-looking eyes through plastic surgery has exploded, and many are now turning to calf surgery to make their legs appear more Western. A cultural transformation has also occurred in Fiji, where women’s self-esteem plummeted after years of exposure to Western television, according to a Harvard University study in the late 1990s. The trend has spread to Hong Kong, where weight loss pills saturate the market, and to Japan, a country where Hall says most women desire large breasts, small waists and Western facial features. From Seoul to Hong Kong, Singapore to Tokyo, physicians report that eating disorders are on the rise.
November 12th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
No way. That is terrible.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
No way. That is terrible.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
if people knew that she was anorexic, i don’t understand why her fellow strikers and friends would allow her to do something so physically dangerous to herself.
and honestly, i felt sorry for her after i heard that she was hospitalized, but that sympathy was diluted somewhat after I read her melodramatic post-strike comment. only a very small portion of it is reproduced on this post, but in it she demonizes and blames Columbia admin for her premature end to hunger striking, saying “I want the administration to know that 4 days was obviously too long of a time for me to wait while they are on their little vacations to Cape Cod or wherever they go to escape their responsibilities” and that “the students who care enough about Columbia University to want to change enough to starve and to hurt for it will remain strong.” it reeked of arrogance, self-righteousness, and self-importance.
http://cu-strike.blogspot.com/2007/11/statement-from-aretha-choi.html
November 12th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
if people knew that she was anorexic, i don’t understand why her fellow strikers and friends would allow her to do something so physically dangerous to herself.
and honestly, i felt sorry for her after i heard that she was hospitalized, but that sympathy was diluted somewhat after I read her melodramatic post-strike comment. only a very small portion of it is reproduced on this post, but in it she demonizes and blames Columbia admin for her premature end to hunger striking, saying “I want the administration to know that 4 days was obviously too long of a time for me to wait while they are on their little vacations to Cape Cod or wherever they go to escape their responsibilities” and that “the students who care enough about Columbia University to want to change enough to starve and to hurt for it will remain strong.” it reeked of arrogance, self-righteousness, and self-importance.
http://cu-strike.blogspot.com/2007/11/statement-from-aretha-choi.html
November 13th, 2007 at 3:58 am
It’s not our fault that large breasts, small waists, and big eyes are hot, damnit.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
It’s not our fault that large breasts, small waists, and big eyes are hot, damnit.
November 13th, 2007 at 4:10 am
dear white people – not clever, not funny, completely inappropriate. for lack of a more eloquent response, i think you’re an awful person.
November 13th, 2007 at 12:10 am
dear white people – not clever, not funny, completely inappropriate. for lack of a more eloquent response, i think you’re an awful person.
November 13th, 2007 at 4:40 am
But alas, White People do not know what’s good for them. The most beautiful women lie (quite literally!) in the Middle East. No wonder they have to be covered!
November 13th, 2007 at 12:40 am
But alas, White People do not know what’s good for them. The most beautiful women lie (quite literally!) in the Middle East. No wonder they have to be covered!
November 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
“So, remember how we made those pro-ana jokes about the Columbia hunger strikers, whose demands were so vague we figured they were just anorexic kids looking for attention?”
I was under the impression that all anorexic kids were “just looking for attention.”
November 13th, 2007 at 9:34 am
“So, remember how we made those pro-ana jokes about the Columbia hunger strikers, whose demands were so vague we figured they were just anorexic kids looking for attention?”
I was under the impression that all anorexic kids were “just looking for attention.”
November 14th, 2007 at 2:23 am
I went to high school with Aretha and I was very surprised a few days ago when I saw this “Audrey” article because of the amount of fabrication it contains. The article states that Aretha left home for Andover in ninth grade; in reality, Aretha began there in eleventh grade. It discusses her descent into anorexia over her first years there, sinking to a low of ninety pounds. I wasn’t super close with Aretha, but I was certainly aware of her presence, and she definitely never weighed that little. Perhaps Aretha is weight-conscious, but details in this article are definitely exaggerated and invented. I don’t quite know what to make of it.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I went to high school with Aretha and I was very surprised a few days ago when I saw this “Audrey” article because of the amount of fabrication it contains. The article states that Aretha left home for Andover in ninth grade; in reality, Aretha began there in eleventh grade. It discusses her descent into anorexia over her first years there, sinking to a low of ninety pounds. I wasn’t super close with Aretha, but I was certainly aware of her presence, and she definitely never weighed that little. Perhaps Aretha is weight-conscious, but details in this article are definitely exaggerated and invented. I don’t quite know what to make of it.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:20 am
oh aretha. liar and attention seeker..much?
November 14th, 2007 at 12:20 am
oh aretha. liar and attention seeker..much?
November 15th, 2007 at 1:36 am
wow. either:
a) the magazine really screwed up its facts on this one
b) aretha exaggerated the details of her ED
c) aretha made up a story about having ED
i’ve never been a huge fan of aretha, but i SINCERELY hope that it’s not C, because then i would lose what 0.0001 ounce of respect i have left for her.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
wow. either:
a) the magazine really screwed up its facts on this one
b) aretha exaggerated the details of her ED
c) aretha made up a story about having ED
i’ve never been a huge fan of aretha, but i SINCERELY hope that it’s not C, because then i would lose what 0.0001 ounce of respect i have left for her.
November 26th, 2007 at 9:19 am
this is ridiculous. why is this woman being demonized? as if you all really care about her anorexia. you are here to gleefully mock her. btw, even if the article is true, it says she recovered from anorexia, so take it easy on the amateur psychoanalysis, will you?
shame on you all.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:19 am
this is ridiculous. why is this woman being demonized? as if you all really care about her anorexia. you are here to gleefully mock her. btw, even if the article is true, it says she recovered from anorexia, so take it easy on the amateur psychoanalysis, will you?
shame on you all.
May 29th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
So sad…