By Harshita Mansukhani
Eating disorder is a range of psychological disorders, characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits. There are several types of eating disorders. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the most common ones. These disorders often appear in media, but not in the way they should be portrayed; they often get romanticized. With the power that media holds, these dangerous disorders can be easily glorified
What do you think when you hear the term eating disorders? Many people see an image of a skinny white girl with protruding ribs more often than not, this is not the case. People suffering with eating disorders are not always thin, and guess what, they are also not always girls. Eating disorders have no weight, size, or color.
The movie called To Be Bones, available on Netflix, is one of the examples where eating disorders have been glorified. The character, Ellen, is a young girl suffering from anorexia and attending a facility that treats eating disorders. In the movie, anorexia is portrayed to be “beautiful”, with thigh gaps and visible ribs. Also, the movie takes a classic stereotypical route where the romantic interest, Ellen, plays a role in her recovery, depicting that it is the romantic partner who should be credited for the recovery and not the person themselves.
There are many more such movies such as Heathers, Thin, Perfect body and many more which portray eating disorders in a wrong way. The movies come out with a good intention to raise awareness about these disorders, but end up portraying it in a way that could be harmful.
The media always portrays things in the wrong way, and it should find the right way to portray such stuff. They should also show the aspects of eating disorders which are frequently not portrayed such as extreme weight loss, constant bloating, always thinking and stressing about food, insomnia, dizziness, hair loss, extreme fatigue, organ failures often leading to death.
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