Anorexics Flap over Flappers

In March, 2004, the web page with Perseus' Chapter 12 of The Head of the Medusa at Fathers for Life rose to sudden prominence. The popularity of Chapter 12 of The Head of the Medusa did not abate for some months; it actually increased considerably during a stretch of a few months. I found that search engine picture-searches for some reason reflected a great interest in the poster with the Flappers shown in Chapter 12 of The Head of the Medusa,

and I looked for more information as to why that was.
   The interest arises out of society's fascination with the non-problem of anorexia nervosa. The Flappers graphic became prominent on anorexia nervosa web pages and blogs. At least one anorexia-nervosa blog uses the Flappers graphic as the background for its home page, which does not justice, I am sorry to report, neither to the graphic nor the text it is the background for at that blog. Large portions of the text on that page are not legible due to lack of contrast between the font colour and the background colour.

However, why complain? Chapter 12 of The Head of the Medusa had 206 visitors during the last three full days in that March week. Some people stayed long enough at the page to have read it all, and some went from the page to related pages of The Head of the Medusa.
   The flappers graphic had been accessed 371 times during the last three full days in that March week. That appears to put anorexia nervosa into the proper light. The "disease" is nothing of the sort. It is a fixation on a surreal fashion ideal. Moreover, since then, interest in the web pages at Fathers for Life that address anorexia nervosa dropped off by about 75%. That more than proves that obsession with anorexia nervosa is not a disease but a compulsion driven by a fashion craze.
   But that is not all. It is also a fixation with the macabre. Consider the ranking, according to the number of hits, for the most often accessed files at Fathers for Life in that week of March:

Hits during 2004 03 22-24	File (Where appropriate, click on the thumbnail for a given graphic to expand it to full size.)
7,693	Background used on virtually all pages at Fathers for Life
7,442	Fathers for Life logo shown [then] on virtually all web pages at Fathers for Life
4,093	Photo of an anorexic body builder shown at the index page for the anorexia nervosa pages at Fathers for Life
4,003	Tune of German folksong, Thoughts are free. The tune, its lyrics (in German, English and French) and the story related to the song are accessible at the bottom of virtually all web pages at Fathers for Life.
3,750	The White Rose Symbol of a small student organization that opposed Nazism and whose members got sentenced to death one morning and were executed in the afternoon of the same day. The song "Thoughts are free" has a connection with that. (The graphic is shown at the bottom of virtually all web pages at Fathers for Life. The story related to the graphic is accessible there as well.)
2,761	Index page for anorexia nervosa web pages at Fathers for Life
2,240	TRUE! cartoon by Daryl Cagle, poking fun at the fact that "Most women value being thin more than being 'successful or well loved.'"
2,173	Cartoon by SIPRESS: "That's pork—the meat of the pig. It makes an excellent substitute for tofu." (Celebrating the fact that one moderate helping of tofu provides fifty times the recommended maximum dosage of 10 mg of oxalates. The stuff that makes rhubarb leaves poisonous, oxalic acid, is an oxalate)
371	The American female of the 1920's - the 'Flapper' - an independent good time girl — The Head of the Medusa, by Perseus, Chapter 12 (Independent? Who built the subway car they are riding in and keeps it operational, the subway system the subway car is running in, the machinery used to produce their clothes, printed the newspapers they are reading, felled the logs for the pulp, made the pulp, turned the pulp into the paper the newspapers were printed on, etc., etc., ....?)

Sorry to say, anorexia-addicted readers, although overall the public interest in the web pages of Fathers for Life increased between March and December of 2004, the page hits for the anorexia nervosa pages dropped from 6,809 to 1,767, by 74%. That is not due to a miracle cure. It is most likely due to no other reason than that the vast majority of anorexics apparently became bored with their affliction and went on to other things to obsess with or to do something worth-while.