The Problem With the Stories We Tell About Eating Disorders
Over the past several years, depictions of eating disorders have become more common on-screen and in literature. Think of Lily Collins’s thin frame as she counts calories in the Netflix film To the Bone, or the young protagonist of the series Insatiable, who becomes skinny after a summer on a liquid diet. Sarai Walker’s novel Dietland is a satirical look at a woman radicalized after years of failed weight-loss attempts, and JoAnna Novak’s book I Must Have You follows a mother and daughter who both have body dysmorphia. NBC recently ordered a pilot for a sitcom starring Demi Lovato about “friends who belong to a food-issues group.” This abundance of narratives, however, has not resulted in a diversity of stories. And, unfortunately for audiences, many of these works fall into the trap of sensationalism.
Eating disorders are a vexing subject, which featured characters restricting, bingeing, and purging, sometimes in broad daylight. Many how books and movies about eating disorders can help perpetuate them in audiences. Sometimes, these works also misrepresent who struggles with such conditions, misconceptions that even some . White, rich, or middle-class cis women with anorexia aren’t the only people dealing with eating disorders. These conditions also include bulimia and binge-eating disorder, and they can affect men, people of color, and genderqueer people.
