I completely agree. I don't want to look like Barbie or whatever, but I am a little obsessed with the connection between fasting and "specialness" (purity, discipline, etc.), which has been shaped by Christian thinking for thousands of years. My motivations aren't quite so stereotypical, but they're still shaped by my culture's veneration of thinness.

I think most people (including myself) don't realize -- or don't want to realize -- how much we're shaped by our cultures. And yes, eating disorders are much more complicated than wanting to look like Kate Moss or whatever. But there have been plenty of studies demonstrating a link between Western society and eating disorders. The explosion of eating disorders in Fiji after the introduction of Western television springs to mind.

Hell, entire mental illnesses have come and gone due to culture. Glass delusion, for example, was a relatively common mental illness between the 1400s and the 1600s, when glass was just becoming more common in Europe. Now that glass is an everyday material, however, the delusion has all but disappeared. Culture is huge. It shouldn't be underestimated.