Eating three meals a day, and making sure to incorporate all of the different food groups into those meals, is considered a social norm today. Going out to dinner at nice restaurants, meeting friends for lunch at cafes, or even enjoying a bag of popcorn at the movie theater are all included in our daily lives and routines. Eating is not only a main component of survival, but it has become a basis for human interaction. One of the biggest problems society faces today is people of all ages starving themselves to be thin, despite what it may be doing to their health. Deviance, although described in many different ways, is most commonly depicted as a violation of social norms. Eating a balanced and healthy diet is a norm in our society, people suffering from anorexia nervosa starve themselves on a daily basis and do not consume the nutrients their bodies need to remain healthy. Thus they are considered deviant.
             Robert Merton discusses deviance in some ways, from the functionalist perspective. Emile Durkheim's idea of anomie, which introduced the idea of human strain, helped to inspire Merton's social theories. Merton believes that strain stems from a gap between cultural goals and the ability to achieve them individually. For some, anorexia is a practice of retreatism, rejecting society's norms about eating and health, and lacking the ability to consume food. While, for others anorexia is a form of innovation, rejecting the societal norms about eating, and accepting starvation as their new norm. Merton also looks at the argument that anorexic woman cannot live up to the cultural goal of being thin, so they are forced to give up eating entirely.
             Mim Udovitch describes the lives of many young girls who are coping with their anorexic "lifestyles," as they would call them, through pro-anorexic websites. Claire considers anorexia a way of life. She is unhappy with her weight and her body, like many of the girls who enter the websites are...