If I asked you to picture a person with anorexia nervosa, what would you see? I can only assume it would be a young woman, perhaps around her teens, who is pale, skin and bone with sharpened cheekbones. This is the most apparent way this eating disorder and mental illness is portrayed in media.
Netflix released a film in 2017 titled “To The Bone,” a story about a young twenty-something girl who starved and purged herself into a less-than-human-looking skeleton. She’s going to different treatment facilities for her disorder but is constantly shown downing caffeine, losing consciousness and despite her lethargic symptoms, delivering angsty retorts to her critics.
How this disease is represented on-screen couldn’t be farther from reality. If you have ever had a friend or family member trust you with their secret, you would see that not all victims of the disease wear it as protruding bones or have secret diaries logging their calories burned or food intake. I’ve hardly ever seen an accurate depiction of people who suffer from body dysmorphia on screen. I have seen more false or embellished depictions than anything.
Like Netflix’s “To the Bone,” much too similar in my opinion, the films “Starving in Suburbia” and “The Road Within,” feature the same petit and tragically underweight character. The only thing “The Road Within” does to bend the over-used character type is introduce people of color to the main casting. The film fails to show the fact that in the real world not everyone who has anorexia is a twig.
Many people suffering from this eating disorder are not skinny. In fact, many who suffer from anorexia are cruelly stigmatized for being larger. For that reason, few believe to have the disease because of the way it is represented.
This is not something I say often, but where are the men being represented here? Yes, men can have eating disorders too, it is all too common. Like every human on the planet, they get insecure about their bodies and will adopt unhealthy habits to try to control their weight.
Alongside men, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of certain religious backgrounds are left out of the narrative when it comes to body dysmorphia and anorexia. The before mentioned films and others almost exclusively feature traditionally attractive white females in the roles of those suffering from anorexia.
It’s not a scar people wear forever, and much like binging and purging, it can be brought on from stress. The disorder can come and go from your life just as other mental illnesses’ do. There are good days and there are bad days.
For this reason, people don’t generally notice someone’s eating disorder until it resembles something we have seen on the big screen. Unfortunately, those who suffer from this disease are good at hiding it. Their bodies do not all look like they are made of sticks and shrink wrap. Do not look at the person’s body to figure out if they are suffering from this disease – t. The clues are in their behavior.
Those who suffer from anorexia are more likely to appear depressed or have a lack of energy during things they may have once jumped up and down for. They may get sick easily due to malnutrition. People who suffer from this may be, depending on their body, constantly cold to the touch even with a furnace on full blast. Most of all you may see a consistent denial of food intake with legitimate excuses such as “I ate before I came here” or “I had a big lunch.”
Some of the most subtle signs may be as simple as a heavy intake of caffeine, eating fast or slow, encouraging others to eat more and weighing themselves regularly. These easily blend into everyday normal behavior.
Without the proper representation in film and TV, our society has a warped extreme and very exclusive version of this condition. We do not know how to support people who have a present or previous problem with anorexia. We don’t even know what it really looks like.
This is up to us if the entertainment industry continues to relay ignorance on screen. It is our responsibility to do research, talk with one another and try to understand how we can help with this silent epidemic.
Rebecca Pratt can be reached at [email protected].