Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Theology
First Advisor
Andrew Kim
Abstract
This dissertation provides a theological response to eating disorders, disordered eating, and body dissatisfaction, particularly in light of social media’s influence on women and girls. Theologically, eating disorders may be thought of as conditions produced by a debased version of beauty, a self-transcending rather than self-negating conception of kenosis, and a distorted pursuit of goodness or “misguided moralism” that results. Paying particular attention to the feminine thin ideal and its influence on Western beauty standards, this dissertation engages Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics and presentation of kenosis alongside virtue ethics to respond to society’s impoverished vision of beauty and women’s eating-disorder experiences and recovery. Beginning with current approaches to eating disorders, the opening chapter examines various models of understanding and treating eating disorders. Mining moral, psychological, and social model of understanding eating disorders for their benefits and implications, the dissertation establishes what a theological model must be responsive to, and avoid. The theological tradition’s connection of beauty, goodness, and truth with the divine allows theological aesthetics to act as a corrective to society’s thin-idealized version of beauty and to offer women a positive vision of beauty connected to their telos. Balthasar’s linking of beauty and Christ’s kenosis, contextualized in the community of the Trinity, provides a theological means of redressing the link some women see between feminine obedience and the obedient death of Christ on the cross. It also offers a response to the sense of worthlessness that some girls and women experience when they struggle to align their bodies to what society presents as the ultimate female beauty ideal. The dissertation concludes with Thomistic virtue ethics’s contributions to a vision of human flourishing, grounded in humanity’s telos and contextualized in grace, that considers the challenges of eating disorder recovery in the context of a thin-idealized society. Two particular contributions of virtue ethics to a theological response to eating disorders reside within its insights into the role of community and moral exemplars, especially in light of social media’s relationship with the thin ideal and the influence of both on girls and women.