Eating disorders are always a delicate subject to talk about in films or documentaries, some easily go from the reality of the illness to a caricaturization of it. But some films and documentaries make an accurate portrayal of these disorders. At the end of the post you’ll find a list of anorexia documentaries and a list of binge eating disorder (BED) documentaries. BED is totally underrepresented in the media, you can find many anorexia movies but where are the BED ones? Besides having fat people obsessing over food and doing silly stuff in comedies, Hollywood doesn’t like overweight actors at all (even less if they are women).
Ironically anorexia and binge eating disorder sufferers are targets of the same kind of skepticism from the general (misinformed) public. You just have to have a look at Youtube comments in any eating disorders related video to find users telling the anorexics to eat or telling the binge eaters to stop eating. People have a hard time seeing these disorders as illnesses. Anorexia is more accepted as a mental disorder now thanks to Karen Carpenter and other sufferers in the public eye in the past few decades but BED isn’t. BED sufferers are seen just as lazy fat people who can’t stop eating because they love food and lack self-discipline.
People feel pity for anorexics, but hate a fat person who eats and complains about being fat. Let’s be honest, anorexia has been glamorized by the fashion industry and the media: be thinner, be better than the rest. While a fat person is just a loser. Anorexia is seen as self-control, binge eaters are seen as people who won’t do anything to improve themselves.
I want to make clear that I am not saying that all overweight people who love to eat are binge eaters. Some are fat because they eat too much (or too bad), have a natural predisposition (slow metabolism)… And many other reasons. Same with anorexics, not all the skinny people who eat little and take care or their body are anorexics. Some people are skinny build and don’t need much food to function. I am not a doctor and I am talking about these disorders in relation to the media, to read about their causes, symptoms, etc you can follow the links in this article.
The media is unfair to all eating disorders besides anorexia. Why? Because they don’t look good on pictures? Anorexia is the cover girl, Bulimia is its ugly, disgusting sister. Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder OSFED (formerly called EDNOS) doesn’t even stand a chance. You don’t have to be a BED sufferer to be banned by the media, if you are overweight the media will put a red flag on you, but if you are anorexic you might be praised and loved until you start to look too ill… you might die even before that happens (like we have seen in the recent years with models Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston). Let’s have a look at this:
Nicole Richey in 2003 (too fat for fashion mags, only good for reality tv) and in 2006, suffering from anorexia but suddenly a perfect fashion icon for magazines covers. And when do overweight people usually make covers? Sadly just for fat shaming reasons:
The irony is that even the media does this non-stop, from time to time they pick a patsy (in the most hypocritical way) and destroy him/her, like just happened yesterday with a Lilly Pulitzer employee (and the whole company by extension). I am not condoning the employee’s behavior, but let’s be honest: the fashion industry does that everyday and people who is not skinny end up thinking they are the problem, not the media perversion of the perfect body! I guess we are just too used to it, we don’t realise how manipulated we are anymore. And then suddenly those same magazines tell us to hate someone because of some private drawings found in their office space?
The fat discrimination even reaches the doctors, basically because there aren’t many investigations related to BED. If a binge eater goes to the doctor most of the times s/he will be put on a diet. If an anorexic does s/he will get proper psychological treatment, which is what both need. People usually forget both illnesses are mental disorders and need psychological treatment. No one is expecting an anorexic to start eating because they are told to, why do they expect binge eaters to stop eating because they are told to? Both disorders have an element of addiction (addiction to starve and addiction to food), why the discrimination? There are more BED sufferers than anorexia and bulimia ones. Still they don’t make headlines.
The media decided that all anorexics are basically highly intelligent teenage girls. Why turn anorexia into an appealing young female illness? What about male sufferers or older ones or children? So anorexics are intelligent, bulimics are promiscuous and binge eaters are lazy? Are these labels going to help anyone? Stereotypes are a terrible thing, but even worse when we are dealing with mental disorders.
If you want to know more about the reality of both disorders we made a playlist of anorexia documentaries and a BED documentaries one. I wanted to pick 10 of each but with BED it was sadly impossible. So there are only 3 in the BED playlist (just click to watch or save):
ANOREXIA DOCUMENTARIES PLAYLIST
Thin (2006)
Caraline’s Story (1994)
Dying to be Thin (2000)
I’m a child anorexic (2007)
Perfect Illusions: Eating Disorders and the Family (2003)
I’m a Boy anorexic (2007)
Wasting Away (2000)
Bronte Cullis’ Story (2013)
Desperately Hungry Housewives (2009)
I Love Being Anorexic (2006)
BED DOCUMENTARIES PLAYLIST
Binge Eating (2012)
Addicted to Food: Sharon’s Story (anyone knows?)
Through the Looking Glass (2015)
You can find Eating Disorders help/information online here:
ANOREXIA: NEDIC - ANAD - ONLINE SUPPORT GROUPS
BED: BEDA - NEDIC - SUPPORT GROUPS AND ADVICE
If you just want to talk to someone about any eating disorder or ask for advice, we already suggested in an older article 7 cups of tea, a nice place with volunteer listeners.
[We didn’t upload any of these documentaries or films, we just found them on Youtube, so we can’t guarantee for how long they will be there.]
