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Anorexia statistics: Naomi Wolf’s Overdo and Lie Factor (WOLF)
The title is taken from a review, by Casper Schoemaker(1), of the gross exaggeration of anorexia statistics by Naomi Wolf in her book, The Beauty Myth. Schoemaker computed a WOLF factor (Wolf’s Overdo and Lie Factor) by dividing a statistic from epidemiological reviews(2, 3) by the corresponding statistic in the 1991 edition of her book, The Beauty Myth. He assigned a value of 1 to the WOLF if he could not find the relevant statistic in epidemiological reviews. If Wolf reported a range such as 5-10%, then the average of the extremes was taken, 7.5% in this case.
The anorexia statistics in The Beauty Myth, compared to objective and accurate statistics, and the WOLF(1) |
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Anorexia statistic |
Beauty Myth |
Epidemiology reviews(2, 3) |
WOLF |
Page 181 |
|
|
|
1. Percentage of anorexia patients that is female |
92.5 |
92.5 |
1 |
2. Number of U.S. anorexics at this moment |
1,000,000 |
95,000 |
11 |
Page 182 |
|
|
|
3. Number of new anorexia and bulimia patients each year in U.S. |
1,000,000
|
75,000
|
13.3
|
4. Percentage of American women suffering from AN |
7.5 |
0.065 |
115 |
5. Percentage of American girls and women suffering from anorexia |
7.5 |
0.065 |
115 |
6. Percentage of American female students suffering from anorexia |
20 |
0.5 |
40 |
7. Percentage of female American students suffering from anorexia or bulimia at this moment |
50 |
3 |
16.7 |
8. Percentage of young American women suffering from anorexia at this moment |
7.5 |
0.3 |
25 |
9. Number out of ten female American university students suffering from anorexia |
2 |
0.05 |
40 |
10. Percentage of anorexia patients that die during treatment |
10 |
5.5 |
1.82 |
11. Percentage anorexia patients dying |
19 |
5.5 |
3.45 |
12. Percentage of anorexia patients fully recovering |
45 |
55 |
0.81 |
Page 183 |
|
|
|
13. Number of anorexia and bulimia patients in Great Britain |
3,500,000 |
110,000 |
31.8 |
14. Percentage of British anorexia patients that is female |
95 |
92.5 |
1.03 |
15. Increase of anorexia and bulimia patients in Great Britain each year |
6,000 |
? |
1 |
16. Percentage of British girls suffering from anorexia |
1 |
0.3 |
3.3 |
17. Percentage of British women suffering from an eating disorder (anorexia or bulimia) |
50 |
0.5 |
100 |
18. Percentage of Swedish girls suffering from anorexia |
1.5 |
0.3 |
5 |
19. Percentage of Dutch girls suffering from |
1.5 |
0.3 |
5 |
20. Percentage of Italian adolescents suffering from anorexia or bulimia |
1 |
0.65 |
1.54 |
21. Percentage of Italian anorexia or bulimia patients that is female |
95 |
95 |
1 |
22. Percentage of increase of anorexia in Italy in ten years time |
400 |
100 |
4 |
23. Percentage of American women with serious eating problems (anorexia or bulimia) |
60 |
0.5 |
120 |
In 1994, Christina Hoff Sommers -- author of Who stole Feminism? -- pointed out the vastly exaggerated U.S. anorexia deaths statistic by Naomi Wolf, 150,000 to be more precise, and quoted experts who estimated the number of annual anorexia-related deaths in the U.S. to range from 100-400. The 150,000 figure was taken from a mis-quoted second-hand source, which reported an estimate of 150,000 anorexia suffers as 150,000 fatalities. An epidemiologic review published in 2003 estimated the number of anorexia sufferers in the U.S. as 95,000, of whom 525 can be expected to die per year from anorexia(3).
In a letter to Time, Naomi Wolf acknowledged the exaggerated fatalities figure(4), but claimed that this was the only bad statistic in her book. However, as Schoemaker’s review shows, most of her statistics are off the mark, often way off. Only 5 of 23 (22%) statistics reported by Naomi Wolf are accurate or close; three of them are about the percentage of anorexia patients that is female, one is simply Wolf given the benefit of doubt and the last one is an underestimate of the percentage of anorexia patients that fully recovers. Half of her statistics are exaggerated over ten-fold. The mean WOLF is 8.28, not including the 150,000 fatalities statistic (WOLF = 286), and calculated by multiplying the 23 WOLFs together and then computing the 23rd root of the product. The mean WOLF of the first edition of her book is 8.61.
Feminists like Naomi wolf are prone to greatly exaggerating problems faced by women, and whereas a normal person would be pleased when told that the prevalence of the problems is a lot less, the likes of Naomi Wolf would be angered, which is not difficult to understand; after all, a high prevalence of anorexia is important for her argument, which is that “the beauty myth” drives a lot of women to undereat. Wolf has argued that having been scared by the increasing successes and power of women in the West, some men [heterosexual, no doubt] decided that the best way to put women in their rightful place is to occupy their thoughts with self-appearance and starve them. It would be cool to see how Naomi Wolf would respond when confronted by massive evidence that the reason for the typical skinniness of high-fashion models is that this is part of a package of looks that helps them approximate the looks of adolescent boys, which is preferred by the homosexual men that dominate the top ranks of the fashion business. The influence of heteropatriarchy would lead to a very different kind of high-fashion models.
References:
- Schoemaker, C., A Critical Appraisal of the Anorexia Statistics in The Beauty Myth: Introducing Wolf's Overdo and Lie Factor (WOLF), Eat Disord, 12, 97 (2004).
- Hoek, H. W., Review of the epidemiological studies of eating disorders., in Eating disorders and obesity : a comprehensive handbook, Fairburn, C. G., and Brownell, K. D., Eds., Guilford Press, New York, pp. 233 (2002).
- Van Hoeken, D., Seidell, J., and Hoek, H. W., Epidemiology, in Handbook of eating disorders, Treasure, J., Schmidt, U., and Furth, E. v., Eds., John Wiley, Southern Gate, Chichester ; Hoboken, N.J., pp. 11 (2003).
- Wolf, N., Statistics on anorexia (letter), in Time (1994, Aug 22).
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Comments:
Page 1 of 1 pages
This is one of many reasons why I hate feminists. They over exaggerate womens’ problems, ignore men (unless they’re able to blame them for said problems), and remove any right that men can have that women may also have. They’re worse than blacks that talk about slavery all the time, but never do anything but talk. Lot of people died for their right to be free, to improve themselves, but they’d rather talk about the problems their ancestors had. Why is Rosa parks recognized more than Vivien Thomas? Because Rosa was only a victim. Vivien made something that helped the world. Feminists need to stop talking about the problems that don’t exist, and go change the ones that do, not only womens’, but the ones of the entire human population.
Posted by Josh on August 15, 2007 at 10:19 PM | #
Josh: If you believe that Rosa Parks was a victim, you had better read this (other content at the site not endorsed).
Posted by Erik on August 19, 2007 at 07:13 PM | #
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