The Hunger Artist

Eating is a problem for many people. In the obvious sense, because it is a scarce commodity or they are too poor to afford it, but in a far more subtle sense as well and especially for women: look at Karen Carpenter, Princess Diana, Lena Zavaroni and countless, countless others. It becomes a syndrome where every morsel is seen as invasive and has to be dealt with. Skinny, exiguous women still think they’re too fat and ugly. Christ! The world of fashion insists upon it; look at the state of super-models. They’re no longer really women, merely clothes-horses.

There used to be a phenomenon – a type of entertainment – called the ‘hunger artist’. These were usually men and folk would pay to watch them fast or starve themselves for weeks at a time. Sometimes they’d be doing this in a restaurant while in a cage at the end of a table while people were gorging themselves on food and fine wines. It was somehow entertaining for them to eat while a person starved. You don’t need me to point out any metaphors here but we do live in a world that has two extremes of a problem centred around food. One is obesity and the other starvation.

Malthusians would say it is because the poor over-produce that food is scarce, others would insist there is more than enough for everyone and it is unfair distribution that is the problem.

I remember some huge American woman – one of those that has to be lifted out of a chair almost with mechanical pulleys – who said basically that she was consuming food for the good of America. Her point was, the more she ate the healthier the economy.

There is clearly an ethical problem here.