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To The Bone: Yes, Another Review

ToTheBonePoster

To The Bone is the hot topic right now in the eating disorder community: amongst those who are suffering, those in remission, and professionals who work with people with eating disorders. There are reviews being written about it left, right, and centre, and unfortunately I am here to throw my unoriginal opinion into the mix. I know that what I am about to write has been said already, but I wanted to join the conversation. Here are my thoughts on To The Bone below.

(GIANT SPOILERS ALERT FOR THE CONTENT BELOW)

What was wrong with it:

It shows an overly represented narrative

Eli is a straight, white young woman from a wealthy family, which is totally great, because I’ve just never seen that narrative be explored before. Not. How many times have we seen this in the media? Over and over and over and over again. Quite frankly, I’m bored of seeing emaciated white women counting their ribs in the mirror as their white panties hang off their hipbones. Not that their suffering is invalid, but because the suffering of others is just as valid and I’m not seeing them represented anywhere. Where are the black girls with anorexia? Where are the average weight women? Where are the men (I know, a man was included in To The Bone, but he was not the main character – it was not his story)? Where are the girls with bulimia (the one girl with bulimia got about a minute and a half of screen time) and the men with anorexia athletica, and the elderly? Or just anyone who isn’t white having any other eating disorder than binge eating disorder? We don’t see these people in leading roles, or talked about in magazines, or depicted pretty much anywhere, and they are a huge portion of people with eating disorders. The straight white wealthy female narrative is overdone. It is cliche, it perpetuates myths and stereotypes, and it is damaging for a large portion of those with eating disorders who do not see themselves represented anywhere, and therefore, feel that their pain is invisible, and that they are not sick enough to be noticed.

The lead actress – a recovered anorexic – starved herself for the role and then gave ridiculously problematic interviews about it

Lily Collins said that it was a “scary process,” but “I knew that, this time, I would be held accountable for it. I would be [losing weight] under the supervision of a nutritionist and surrounded by all these amazing women on set. So, I knew that I would be in a safe environment to explore this.” Do you know what is not safe in any environment? BECOMING EMACIATED. Do you know what is especially not safe in any environment? BECOMING EMACIATED WHEN YOU ARE IN REMISSION FROM ANOREXIA NERVOSA. The genetic predisposition for an eating disorder is triggered by energy deficit. A recovered anorexic cannot just lose weight and be safe. You cannot say that it is alright just because you are supervised by a nutritionist. Becoming emaciated always comes with risks, and becoming emaciated as a recovered anorexic opens the gateway as wide as you possibly can for the eating disorder to stroll right on through. Immersing herself into the role is also another huge risk factor for relapse. The point of this is not that I care about her health in particular, because after all she is an adult and she has the choice over what she does with her life. The point is that she is responsible for the way in which she takes care of herself and for the messages she gives out when she knows that a movie like this is going to attract a huge number of vulnerable people, most of them young. Saying that she lost weight in a healthy way to become incredibly underweight sends out the message to people with eating disorders that they can starve themselves and this is totally okay as long as they do it in a certain way – the “healthy” way. This is not helpful. It is damaging, and she should have been way more aware of the position she is in and how what she says will be heard by others. There is no way to starve yourself in a healthy way. Ever. She also said that she didn’t think she would fall back into it because she is “more mature”, as if that makes any difference whatsoever to the development and maintenance of eating disorders, or of the relapse into them. Eating disorders don’t just leave you alone because you grew up. Honestly, for someone who has had an eating disorder, she sure is giving interviews like she is entirely ignorant of them.

The director also said to PEOPLE that Lily Collins losing weight for the role was a conversation that they had and that part of it was “how do we keep you safe, and not at a dangerous weight that’s going to be triggering for you.” In what world was the weight she was at not dangerous for anyone? In what world was it not triggering for anyone with anorexia, let alone herself? I don’t know what planet these guys are living on, but it’s not the same one as the audience of this film.

The psychiatrist is an idiot

He is meant to come off as cool and modern with all the dramatic swearing (how scandalously hip of him!), “revelations”, “wise” and “meaningful” words, and trips to rain installations, but to me he just looks like he sucks at his job. For example, the first time is meets Ellen, he tells her that he is not going to treat her if she is not interested in living. Sorry, what?! Many people with eating disorders struggle to find reasons to live for and part of treatment can be helping someone to find them. He also dismisses family therapy after one session. Therapy is difficult. Family therapy can be a nightmare. But it is through this that many things can be explored and sometimes resolved. You don’t just give up on it in one session, and to me, it looked like that session brought up a number of issues that needed to be addressed. He also tells her that he doesn’t like her name and that it doesn’t suit her and tells her to change it. Maybe this was some sort of point about making a new identity for herself, but it came off as rude and inappropriate. And since we are on the topic of inappropriate, it is highly unlikely that a professional in his position, as a male, would be in her room alone with her at night. Just saying.

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The love story overshadowed the whole thing and was incredibly unhealthy

“I need you, Eli,” Luke, the love interests, says as Ellen leaves the unit after feeling completely overwhelmed. Luke puts Ellen on a pedestal and then continuously pushes responsibility onto Ellen for his wellbeing. He spends the entire time demanding things of her: things that often she feels she cannot do, and when he gets pushy and she snaps, he gets all upset and butthurt. This is not romantic, and this is not what should be portrayed as a good relationship. As their relationship grows, he insensitively (and that is putting it lightly) brings up the topic of sexual abuse and asks if she has been sexually abused, saying that it’s a thing amongst “us rexies” (seriously, rexies?!). He then proceeds to tell her that she needs to be touched by someone who cares about her. That’s right: needs. Nothing like a bit of sexual coercion to set a really good example to an audience of predominantly vulnerable young women. And don’t get me started on the idea that women just need to fall in love with a “great guy” in order to find a reason to recover…

There was a weird, psychoanalytical scene that came out of nowhere

Near the end of the film, when Ellen is coming to the end of her tether – or her life – Ellen stays in her mother’s yurt. Her mother starts to talk to her about her experience of postnatal depression after Ellen was born, and how she did not hold her enough and how her pastor suggested feeding Ellen like a baby in order for Ellen to heal from the neglect she had experienced in the past from her mother. Ellen wants to think about the idea, but as her mother leaves says “mom, please feed me.” Her mother then sits Ellen in her lap like a baby and proceeds to feed her from a baby bottle. The scene to me was uncomfortable and totally out of context. If more was explored and developed from this angle, I don’t think it would have come off as such a strange scene, but it was totally out of the blue. It also directly proceeded Ellen’s “revelation” scene, as if being fed by her mother was so healing that it led directly onto a pathway to recovery. It was completely oversimplified, as was the next scene which leads me onto…

Ellen’s revelation moment was ridiculous

Ellen has a dream about being a healthy weight in a tree. She looks down and see herself, curled up in a foetal position, on the ground, naked and emaciated. “Is that me?!” she asks, shocked. When she wakes, she has the drive to recover, and returns to the unit in order to get better. I know that this was an interpretation of the director’s experience, but as a director you must know that you are not just sharing your version of events but also sending a message to the world. This airy-fairy scene is, to me, undermining, and made the transition from wanting to stay sick to wanting to recover look as easy as switching on a light in a dark room, when for many it is months and months of indecision and struggle before they are finally able to give themselves permission to make the arduous but invaluable journey towards freedom.

It glamorises eating disorders

They did not seem to do too well in their quest for awareness with eating disorders let’s be honest, and just like nearly all media, it has also successfully glamourised eating disorders. Beautiful Ellen, with her smoky make up, cool clothes, and sarky attitude, who doesn’t give a shit and eye rolls at every given opportunity. She just doesn’t seem to make eating disorders seem all that bad, does she? Then there are the discussions of behaviours and weight loss strategies within the eating disorder unit that she stays in. There’s the quirky boy that she falls in love with, and the handsome psychiatrist, and almost no discussion about what actually goes on inside the head of someone with an eating disorder. All we see is Ellen pushing food around her plate; Ellen doing sit ups in bed; Ellen fainting; Ellen rejecting food; Ellen getting thinner thinner thinner. All we are seeing here are the physical symptoms and behaviours of eating disorders, and when you don’t see the torture going on in someone’s minds; when there is barely a conversation about it, then how is it going to look like the hell it is to vulnerable people watching it? How does it dissuade people from carrying on into darkness; how does it help people to seek help; how does it educate those who don’t have eating disorders themselves? The truth is, it doesn’t. Not in any shape or form.

It isn’t even interesting

To The Bone is – to put it bluntly – boring. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t challenge any myths or stereotypes. People who are knowledgeable about eating disorders haven’t learnt anything new, and neither have those who aren’t. It is a non-film: at best, people will watch it and come away with nothing new. But at worst, as discussed above, it sends out damaging messages to those susceptible to them.

So what’s right with it?

It acknowledges the effect that eating disorders have on loved ones

During family therapy, and at other points in the film, the affect that this pervasive and deadly illness has on everyone around them was depicted. This was a positive aspect of this movie, as often stories about people with eating disorders are very much focused on how the main character is affected and does not show the way in which it disrupts the lives of loved ones and the immense pain it causes them.

It acknowledges the hunger

“I’m really fucking hungry. Like two years worth of hungry,” says Luke at one point. I practically whooped at this small but important acknowledgement of the intense hunger that people in recovery often experience, and how this is quite clearly obvious. It is hunger from years worth of damages, and it is there for a reason. The body wants to heal!

It shows a tragic consequence of having an eating disorder

One of the women in the house is pregnant, but she goes on to have a miscarriage. I thought that this was the most moving scene in the film, and shows what eating disorders can do to eating disorder sufferers, outside of the usual symptoms that are often shown.

It did depict one male character with anorexia

Which is great. (But he was still an asshole).

So in conclusion…

Overall, this film to me wasn’t worth making. The only real positive that I can see from the making of this film is that it has provoked conversation across all social media sites. People are naming what is wrong with this film and that sparks debate: debate that will hopefully be educating people. Unfortunately, those involved with reading these sorts of articles will nearly always be those who are already well-versed in eating disorders, whereas the film will have a widespread audience and was a chance to educate people who would not otherwise engage on eating disorder topics. Whilst for many it will be a fleeting moment in their lives, for others it could have a negative impact that could be a factor in propelling them towards unhealthy habits with devastating consequences. Let’s just hope not.

Hidden Behind A Healthy Weight: The Eating Disorders You Can’t See

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invisible

Eating disorders are complex illnesses. They are a mental illness that often result in the deterioration of physical health, and there is not one recovery method that has a high success rate as of yet. They have a complicated entanglement of genetic and environmental causation that is entirely individual to each person. There are many different types of eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, EDNOS/OSFED, ARFID, BED, purging disorder, rumination disorder, pica), and people of all ages, genders, weights, ethnicity, sexual orientation (etc, etc) can develop one. And yet we are bombarded only with images of eating disorders in the form of extreme anorexia: the emaciated, skeletal bodies of those walking the fine line between life and death. The media blasts out the headlines that often scream something like “I WAS 4ST AND ONLY ATE A LETTUCE LEAF A DAY”. They plaster photos of bones protruding across the articles and present to us an “after” photo of the recovered victim: nearly always a slim, beautiful, white young woman.

And there we have it: the damaging stereotype of what an eating disorder looks like and who develops one. This stereotype harms everyone who deviates from the narrative of pretty young white girl who starves herself to within an inch of her life. I’ve never seen an article about anyone black with an eating disorder. Ever. I’m sure that there are one or two articles out there, but the media all but erases the existence of black men and women with eating disorders. It erases the existence of older adults with eating disorders. It erases the existence of men with eating disorders. In fact, the media erases nearly all eating disorders in themselves – the minority of people with eating disorders experience anorexia nervosa, and an even smaller amount have the chronic anorexia that the magazines depict. “Before the latest change in diagnostic criteria, it was estimated that of those with eating disorders, 10% were anorexic, 40% were bulimic and the rest fall into the EDNOS category” (from here). Most of the 90% of people with eating disorders that are not diagnosed as anorexic will be fit into the “healthy”, “overweight”, or “obese” BMI categories. That’s not to mention all the undiagnosed people who are not seeking help and are invisible because of their weight, who are not getting the help and support that they need and deserve.

There are also different types of “invisible people” with eating disorders at a “healthy” weight. Those who have lost lots of weight but come from a higher weight are one set of people. These people are often congratulated for their weight loss, even though it has been lost in exactly the same way that someone going from a “healthy” BMI to an “underweight” one has – someone who would be diagnosed with anorexia rather than praised for their efforts. We offer treatment to those that lose weight and fall into the weight criteria for an anorexia diagnosis, and pat those on the back that lose the same amount of weight but come from a weight perceived as socially unacceptable (or a weight perceived as “acceptable” but not “desirable”). And what many people do not know, or forget, is that we all have our own natural healthy weights (that can be pretty much any weight, shape, or size), and if people are well below those weights, they are underweight for their own individual body. So if someone is naturally a BMI of 27 and they starve themselves to a BMI of 20, they are severely underweight for themselves, but their eating disorder are often dismissed as “healthy weight loss efforts”. Their illness can be not only hidden, but recognised as something positive, and therefore encouraged and reinforced. Included in this category are those who will never dip below a “healthy” BMI and could remain invisible for any amount of time, and those who will continue to lose weight. At this point society will go “woah, lose weight but not too much weight!” This is when their weight loss will be recognised as an issue, but as it was never noticed before, by now the person will likely be entrenched with their eating disorder.

Another group are people who have eating disorders but find that their weight doesn’t change much, or there are those that gain weight during their eating disorder. Weight is only a secondary symptom of some eating disorders, and it is important to understand that not everyone experiences a change in weight when suffering from an eating disorder. They are primarily mental illnesses.

Another group of “invisible people” at a “healthy” weight are those who are recovering from a low or lower weight and have gained weight to a weight that society deems “fine”. Peoples see them in the street and don’t suspect a thing. Friends stop worrying and family heave a sigh of relief. Those close to the person show less concern and more frustration: they think that the journey is over. You look fine therefore you must be fine. It’s important to remember that this is a mental illness, and that the physical symptoms are secondary. It is also important to remember that the person may still be at an unhealthy weight for their own personal body, and though they may be an acceptable size in terms of society’s standards, they may be underweight still regardless of BMI. Just because you can’t see their pain doesn’t mean that they are not experiencing it. The mental anguish that led them to rock bottom is still there and still needs to be addressed.

People who look fine but have expressed that they are not need to be taken seriously. They need to be supported, and they need to be encouraged to move towards being healthy and happy: whatever that looks like for them. It might not look like your idea of healthy and happy, but you have to put aside your biases, your judgements, and your prejudices in order to help that person achieve the best life that they can for them.

If you are someone who is living at what society says is a “healthy” weight, but you have engaged in disordered habits to get there, or you are regaining weight and are still unwell but people think you “look fine”, then sit those people down that are important to you and tell them. Set your boundaries, let them know what you need, and ask them to support you to get better. Be open and honest. Don’t downplay your struggles. Be assertive when telling them what is helpful and what is unhelpful. Print off information on eating disorders to support what you are saying and to give them something to read later to help them to understand how pervasive and powerful an eating disorder is mentally. Write a letter if that is easier. Whatever you do, talk. Your voice needs to be heard.

Men with Eating Disorders: Suffering in Silence

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men and eating disorders

Eating disorders amongst men: we are not talking about it enough. We are not doing enough to end the stigma against eating disorders in general, let alone for the male population that suffer with them. We need to raise awareness. We need to be having conversations about it. We need to be educating the general public about it. We need men on TV, in magazines, on the internet, on every social media platform, to speak out about their struggles and help others do the same so that they can get the help and the support that they need. The thing is, many men don’t feel comfortable talking about it with their closest friends and family members, let alone the public. In fact, they aren’t just uncomfortable: they are terrified, and this is because of the incredibly detrimental stigma wrapped around eating disorders that is magnified tenfold when it comes to the male population. And when people don’t get help, there’s an increased risk of them dying from complications due to their eating disorders.

Out of those with eating disorders, it is reported around 10% of sufferers are male, although these statistics are unreliable due to the fact that so many men do not come forward for treatment and so are not recorded as part of the statistics. A recent study on a large university campus found that the female-to-male ratio of positive screens for eating disorder symptoms was 3-to-1 (you can read more statistics with references in my article Men Get Eating Disorders Too).

For this article, I talked to two men with eating disorders, a friend of mine, Leo*, who is a man in his mid-twenties from the UK, and Joshua*, an Italian-American, who got in touch with me via this website to talk about his experiences with his eating disorder and the stigma surrounding men with eating disorders.

Leo talked to me about how his eating disorder affects him in day-to-day life, and about the one and only time he sought help from a professional.

“I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is check the mirror and look at myself and think I’m fat. I will do it again after a shower and again once I’m dressed. I will do this throughout the day while at work if I go to the toilet as well. I try not to eat to much because in the back of my head is someone saying you’re fat, you’re fat, don’t do it. People at work have joked about me being fat, and I cannot get rid of them saying it over and over again in my head. I want to be perfect, I want to feel normal, and it probably started with the bullying at school and has always sat with me. I went to the doctors and explained that I didn’t feel normal and I hated eating food and I wanted to make myself sick and all I got was the doctor telling me that I need to eat to be healthy and we need food to survive, and that was pretty much it.”

Leo experienced disordered eating for three years, before developing a full blown eating disorder which he has now suffered with for seven years. He struggles with restriction, self-induced vomiting, and compulsive exercise. As you read, when he opened up about it to a doctor, he was met with dismissal. After describing his fear of weight gain, and sustained body hatred, his doctor chose not to explore this further and just told him to eat. I asked him about whether he would consider going back again to see if his experience could be different if he saw another doctor.

“I don’t go back to the doctors because it is embarrassing. I’m a guy and I have to not show weakness. I tried to cry for help and no one cared and so I shut all my emotion off towards it.”

Unfortunately, this is all too common an experience for men, and because of these negative experiences, men don’t seek help in the first place, or don’t go back again after being met with invalidation. Doctors are reportedly less likely to make a diagnosis of eating disorders in males than females (again, you can read my article “Men Get Eating Disorders Too” for references and more information). Not only is there limited training in eating disorders for medical professionals, but the stereotype of eating disorders being an illness exclusively suffered by white, young, females still lingers, and professionals are not exempt from absorbing the myths and stigma that surround eating disorders. Coupled with the damaging pressures from society telling men what they apparently should be like, people seem to have a really hard time accepting that men can suffer from such a debilitating illness as an eating disorder. These societal pressures, which include not showing emotion (or not too much, whatever that means), not crying, not needing help or support, are aspects of being a woman, and they are also supposedly aspects of being weak (because, just in case you are unaware of this entirely ludicrous concept, in our patriarchal society, being like a woman – and therefore being a woman – means that you are weak). On top of that, eating disorders are seen by some as obsessional vanity, whereas they run much deeper than that, and can stem from a variety of things (bullying, abuse of any kind, sense of worthlessness, deep insecurity, trauma, to name a tiny proportion of triggers). They are also a biological illness with genetic links. Your genetics play a part in determining whether you are someone who will develop an eating disorder or not. Those who understand eating disorders already know that developing one is not a choice, but this provides further and solid evidence for those who may not be able to fully comprehend the fact that there is no choice when it comes to mental illness. Still, so many people are still ignorant about mental health. Leo says,

“People look at it as a female disorder. I have mentioned it in conversation with friends and family, and I always get the same opinion – that it’s a woman’s disorder because they are weak or have issues because of how society sees them.”

Leo feels like he can’t talk to anyone about his eating disorder, because they won’t understand. He is terrified of the reaction that he could get.

“I can’t talk to people because they won’t understand. They won’t understand waking up every day feeling the way I do about myself and how I want to fit in and for people not to say I’m fat or chubby. I can’t talk to them or even want to talk to them because my step-dad, my brother-in-law, and I are always in competition in everything we do and I wouldn’t let them know I am weak. I don’t know how they would react. They will see it as a weakness and will think less of me. Even my mum wouldn’t understand.”

I ask if he thinks his mum would view him as weak. “I’m not sure, but I don’t want to risk it.” The concept of men (and women) with eating disorders being weak is so persuasive that Leo sees his own eating disorders as a weakness in him, but says that he doesn’t make the same judgement about anyone else.

Another issue we have to look at is the “ideal” male body that our society has created. Women face a huge amount of pressure to look a certain way thanks to our society, our diet culture, and the media continuously shaming women, telling us to lose weight, giving us diet tips, banging on about “health” 24/7, and showing us a disproportionate amount of slim, beautiful women who have been photoshopped to the nth degree, but whilst we do receive the majority of this pressure, we forget that there’s so much pressure going around that there’s plenty left over for the guys too. Men are being exposed to an increasing amount of images and messages pertaining to what a man “should” look like, and this is extremely harmful. Leo has been affected by this.

“Having 0% body fat and all the muscle in the world is the only way to fit in society for men. Women are seen as having to be skinny but men have to be both skinny and muscular.”

Whilst this is not a reality, and in general only men who are fat or very thin experience stigma around weight, the message has become so strong from the media that for some men, this is how they feel – that they and their bodies will not be accepted unless they look a certain way. The expectations that this is driving some men to have for themselves are unrealistic and unhealthy, and is having a dangerous impact on the mental and physical health of men.

Eating disorders can also be harder to spot in some men because it is more likely for women to have dramatic weight loss, whereas in men their eating disorders can expressed through “bulking up” and hitting the gym, which is not seen as particularly suspect in a society so keen on advocating exercise and showing male body “ideals” as lean and muscular. It is important to note that if an individual is taking performance-enhancing supplements in their attempt to become more muscular and then engages in weight lifting, they are at increased risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke (this paragraph has been taken from my article “Men Get Eating Disorders Too”).

Joshua also talked to me about his experience with an eating disorder.

“My situation largely stems from my cultural love affair with food and how the outside world placed such an unnecessary stigma on what are “good” or “bad” modes of eating. I am an Italian-American, and as such, our lifestyle revolves heavily on cooking and family gatherings that centre on delicious dishes. It is a tradition and rite of passage to learn how to cook for many of us. This is an overwhelmingly positive facet of our heritage, but the media’s obsession with “thin” and “perfection” have demonized any sort of fascination with food beyond what they deem “healthy or fit.” Admittedly, I was heavy as a child and into my teen years – but with changes in my daily lifestyle and just growing, I evened out to what was my normal weight (which was apparently still slightly “larger” than the projected ideal). I still enjoyed any type of food that I wanted and never did I have to restrict. Naturally, as I got older, I became interested in finding a meaningful relationship with a girl. This was when the pressure of having to achieve that outrageous image of “true masculinity” began to weigh heavily on my mind, and my interactions with women in my age group reinforced these damaging gender stereotypes.”

Joshua was also influenced by the media.

“The problem is that “having abs” and looking like an actor/model is so much more than losing weight – it is about obsession to the point of illness.”

Joshua was shamed for his appearance when he became very ill during his eating disorder.

“Ironically, I never did achieve the appearance I aspired to even when I was dangerously skinny. I merely became an emaciated mess, which ended up working against me as I was told it “feminized” my looks and made many girls lose interest.”

Although no one should ever reach any weight, shape, or size by unhealthy means, this shows again the idea of an “ideal” body shape and size for men that has pervaded our society. Whilst no one is naturally emaciated, many men are naturally slim and can feel ashamed of being so. In fact, within a couple of weeks of being with one of my partners, he asked me, “Is my body okay? Am I too skinny?” because he was naturally slim. I had never even considered that this might be an insecurity of his, but it is more common than we think. Insecurity is rife amongst both men and women, and whilst this is damaging in itself, this can also contribute towards the development of eating disorders, which are severe and life-threatening. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, and other restrictive eating disorders follow close behind.

“I find it so difficult to explain to anyone I meet (especially potential dates/prospects) that I am trying to heal from this battle. It is such a strange position to be put in – knowing that double standard of men not expecting to be concerned with weight or appearance (to be outwardly cavalier/macho) but still having to hide their true feelings when exercising themselves into oblivion for muscles/being defined. Gender roles and expectations for men are just as serious [as they are for women] – yet they fly under the radar as something that doesn’t happen and are laughed at by those from older generations.”

These myths, stereotypes, and stigmas need to become a thing of the past. We need to be talking about eating disorders more in general, but we also need to start prioritising the inclusion of men in every conversation that we have about it. We need people to stand up and talk about their experiences, but this should never have to be their responsibility in the first place. We need to educate ourselves and each other about the realities of eating disorders and how they affect men as well as women. We need to dispel the untruths and we need to be more proactive in challenging hyper-masculinity in our society. We need to help our men, and we need to help them to ask for support. If we don’t, we are going to lose them. If you are someone who looks down on men with eating disorders; if you are someone who sees them as weak, put that aside now, and take the time to research eating disorders. Keeping your mind shut to their suffering is costing them their health, their happiness, and sometimes even their lives. These are your sons, your brothers, your husbands, your friends. Each minute we continue to treat our men with eating disorders as weak; each minute we continue to dismiss them, we put their lives in danger.

*Names have been changed for confidentiality

Oh Yes, Eating Disorders Are SO Glamorous

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(TRIGGER WARNING – Eating disorder behaviours written about)

You’ve probably seen it: the glorified photographs of underweight celebrities and models; the tiny, fragile, delicate girls in movies with eating disorders (think Cassie from Skins), maybe you’ve read the overly simplified and massively invalidating Winter Girls. Anorexia is the “diet” everyone wants to be on. Well, maybe not everyone, but I’ve heard the offhand comments: “I wish I had just a touch of anorexia”or “I’d do anything to have a bit of anorexia for a couple of weeks!” Even bulimia, the less glamorised eating disorder gets a look in: “I tried bulimia but I just hate throwing up!”

Why yes, of course, you’re totally right! Eating disorders are SO glamorous.

When my eating disorder forced me to walk forty-five minutes home with a week’s worth of food shopping every week, I totally felt glamorous. When I had to pause every ten minutes because I felt like I was going to pass out, and when I damaged the nerves in my fingers from the tightness of the shopping bag handles, I totally felt glamorous. When I wet myself a little bit now and again because my body was eating away at my bladder to try and get energy, I felt more glamorous than anyone. When I vomited into the toilet and got splashback on my face, it was so glamorous: even more so when I popped the blood vessels around my eyes. When I drunkenly locked myself in my boyfriend’s bathroom and cut my all over my arms, legs, and stomach, it was as glamorous as anyone would want to be. It was also super glamorous when my eating disorder punished me by making me work out vigorously for two hours straight on a malnourished, weak, failing body, until I was at the point of collapse, and when I made myself throw up at a party and a friend heard the whole thing, and when I cried on the train because the man on the other side of the aisle was eating a sandwich and I so desperately wanted to feel “allowed” to have that; have anything. And when I had to run home from a restaurant after eating something with fats in because I immediately got diarrhoea. And also when I screamed at my partner for putting a dash of milk in our scrambled eggs, and smashing a glass and kicking him out of the house when he turned over my “notices” to myself reading “fat bitch” and “starve yourself” and wrote “you are beautiful” and “you are perfect” on the back of them instead. And even more so when all I genuinely, truly wanted was to be chained to a bed so that I could not access the kitchen and eat anything. When I couldn’t think straight and my relationship was ruined and my body was cannibalising itself and my personality had diminished to nothing so that I had no hobbies or interests bar losing weight – what could anyone wish for than a touch of what I had; a touch of what millions of people suffer with every day? Anorexia, bulimia, OSFED, ARFID, anorexia athletica, orthorexia…what more could anyone want but those restrictive eating disorders that destroy your life, take away your health, eliminate your personality, interfere with your ability to work, and wreck your relationships?

And just so you know, eating disorders don’t necessarily make you skinny. They make you sick, and they make you so miserable that you wish you would just die, and they make you more and more dead every minute, but sometimes you don’t even get to be skinny. And even when you are skinny, you’ll never know it. The skinnier you get the fatter you’ll feel. With every pound you lose, you’ll hate it with more and more passion that you’ve ever felt towards anything else, and that will only drive you to continue to lose more, in the hopes that it will make you feel better. But it never will.

So sure, go about wishing you had just a “touch” of what we have. You know that saying ‘be careful what you wish for’? It could not be more true than when it comes to this.

In addition to the idiotic notion that having an eating disorder would be worth it because you’d get skinny, having these incredibly ignorant opinions invalidates and undermines the severity of an eating disorder, thus eradicating the experiences of those suffering from them. Having those sorts of opinions makes our pain invisible, because you don’t understand that it exists.

So learn more about eating disorders, because you know someone with one. You might not think you do, but you do, trust me. Someone in your life is struggling. Don’t let their experiences be invisible to you.

End rant.