A Netflix movie depicting a young woman with anorexia nervosa glamorises the illness and provides a dangerous form of 'thinspiration', warns a women who has recovered from an eating disorder.
To the Bone depicts 20-year-old Ellen's attempt to find effective treatment for anorexia nervosa. Ellen is played by Lily Collins, who formerly struggled with anorexia and lost weight for the role.
Mary-Margaret Slack said Collins provides a dangerous form of inspiration for those with eating disorders.
"The people who made the film have literally made a visual ideal for young girls to look up to and idolise," Ms Slack said in conversation with her father David Slack on RadioLIVE.
Ms Slack said when she became sick four years ago at the age of 14, images providing 'thinspiration' "absolutely contributed" to her illness. She said the movie To the Bone is saturated with those kinds of images.
"It is so easy for people to put images up [on Tumblr] that are dangerous, triggering, and inspire thoughts within people that can lead them down a very dangerous path," Ms Slack said.
"Anorexia is not a body type, it's an illness," Ms Slack said, raising concerns that people who are sick might watch the movie and think they are fine because they don't look like Lily Collins. Many people with eating disorders look healthy but are very sick.
A better movie would depict what an eating disorder feels like, not how it might look, Ms Slack said.
"That way there's no glamorising, there's no trivialising of what recovery is like, because it's hard."
"Mental illness experiences are not exciting or happy or glamorous in any way."
While it is great that movies like To the Bone and the series 13 Reasons Why are starting conversations about mental illness, Ms Slack said we should keep in mind that they are commercial products and "there is an inclination to make the characters loveable, the movies appealing and exciting."
Eating disorder experts in New Zealand raised the same concerns about the movie with Newshub in June. EDANZ president Nicki Wilson was particularly concerned about actor Lily Collins, who is an eating disorder survivor.
"We are concerned that she went to the extent of losing weight to play a part," Ms Wilson said.
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Together, Mary-Margaret and her father made for transfixing listening, rare in its insight into a father-daughter journey through an eating disorder. Addressing his daughter during the interview, Mr Slack said he had great admiration for the medical professionals who treated her.
"I don't think I've ever felt so helpless in my life was when the night before you were admitted to hospital. Trying to get you to eat food was like asking you to drink boiling oil," he said.
Ms Slack said New Zealand is quietly facing an epidemic of eating disorders, and there's a "big problem" with a lack of access to treatment, especially outside the main urban centres.
As many as one in four teenage girls may suffer symptoms of an eating disorder, according to the Central Region Eating Disorder Service.
Where to get help:
- EndED
- EDANZ on 0800 233 269
- Lifeline: 0800 543 354
Newshub
