Despite the existence of on how to dramatise or report on anorexia, it has often been mishandled in the past. But surely, in today’s climate of openness and responsibility on mental health, this has changed.
A trawl through a recent crop of dramas and documentaries on the subject shows progress is slow, yet there is a glimmer of hope.
More than are thought to be affected by an eating disorder. Although anorexia makes up just – much less than bulimia or binge eating disorder – there is perhaps something about the visual abjectness of anorexia that makes representations of it considerably more prevalent than those of the other conditions. This represents one of the problems with its portrayal.
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It is often characterised via lingering shots of jutting hip bones and there is a focus on the rhetoric of “wasting away” that, in turn, glamorises and trivialises the illness.
, a charity dealing with eating disorders, says people affected by anorexia feel under pressure to present images of themselves at their lowest weights and are compelled to legitimise the seriousness of their disorder.
There is also a voyeuristic quality to the popular depiction of the condition, along with an emphasis on women and girls, reaffirming the female body as public and objectified – as exhibition or spectacle.
Ditching the glamorisation
There is a notable exception. Film-maker Louis Theroux’s recent Talking to Anorexia documentary saw him spending time at two of London’s largest eating disorder clinics, speaking with women living with the disorder. It is the fifth big television event on anorexia to air in the UK in the second half of this year.
It follows a , a much-maligned , a about diabetics deliberately reducing their insulin intake to lose weight and a . But there is something especially arresting about Talking to Anorexia: it offers a more humanising, nuanced and diverse take, and was praised by Beat for its “sensitive approach”.
Talking to Anorexia was unusual in both its lack of emphasis on anorexic bodies and for the diverse class and ethnic backgrounds of those interviewed. The norm is usually a focus on young, middle-class white women. White and middle class is the default mode in television, but this perhaps also reveals a failure to attribute emotional and psychological complexity to ethnic minorities and the working class.
This contributes to the myth that anorexia only affects white women: a found clinicians were less likely to diagnose black women presenting the same symptoms as white women. It is also essential to show that it isn’t confined to the middle class, as research has found that those in lower economic brackets are less likely to have eating disorders detected.
Theroux lapsed, however, by not speaking with any men or boys. Anorexia in males is rarely engaged with or depicted, despite them of cases and despite instances of men being admitted to hospital for anorexia having . This lack of representation exacerbates the isolation and stigma felt by men with the disorder, and it is no secret that men are already .
While not perfect, Theroux’s documentary could indicate a departure from previous depictions. In foregrounding the lived experience of the disorder and the combination of genetic, psychological and cultural causes, it avoids the somewhat fetishistic nature of many portrayals. This approach affords a dignity that must be preserved in future films.
