That which nourishes me also destroys me. That Latin proverb has become the unofficial motto of the eating disorder community. It has gained notoriety and possibly even infamy due to actress Angelina Jolie's tattoo of those words. You will not find it written about in books, scholarly articles or advertising the latest diet product, rather you will find it splashed all over essentially every pro-eating disorder website; you will also find it tattooed on the emaciated hips and boney lower backs of many eating disorders strugglers and survivors.
[...] I will not find myself there under false pretenses or totally inebriated; I will not find myself there scared of the possible lingering social and/or professional repercussions. I will find myself there because it will be where my heart and spirit have willed for me to will be there in an attempt to claim back a bit more of the self identity this world and its false promises have stolen from me. I will be there in an effort to further shape and portray my identity to this world. [...]
[...] Indeed, Martins echoes in the thought that tattoos are a way for teens, and others, to mold and shape the self identity one presents to the world and to morph into more of a social entity. Some would not go as far as Martins to say that tattooing is an extension and manifestation of a teen's attempt to form his/her identity; those same people would probably not go as far as Borel in suggesting that the human body lends itself to this form of expression. [...]
[...] Without a doubt, cases of personal judgment and bias still exist but it appears that our society recognizes tattooing as a legitimate form of self expression and one that should not be judged. The acceptability of tattoos in the workplace is a bit more ambiguous than the implications of tattoos in society. A questionnaire emailed to 37 human resource managers posed one simple, open-ended question “regarding tattoos and piercings”; a majority—over eighty-six percent—of the managers responded that visible tattoos and piercings would negatively affect a candidate in an interview (Science Direct—Visible Body Modification). [...]
[...] Egyptian population “flaunted tattoo designs” that are now “thought to have been forms of ritual markings” (The History of Tattoos). Clay figures from 3,000 B.C. found in Japan are decorated in what appears to be tattoos. Just during the last century, Russian explorers excavated bodies from the mountains of Siberia and evidence from the 2,400 year old relics documents the presence of tattoos. It is from these remains and similar evidence that anthropologists and sociologists have concluded that the nature of tattoos as a form of expression has long withstood the test of time (The History of Tattoos). [...]
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