Posts filed under 'eating disorders'
You’re reading the About-Face blog, so I’m gonna guess that you’re interested in the various messed-up ways women and girls are portrayed in media, and how it can really damage our self-esteem and self-respect. Well, now there’s a movie about it! It’s the new documentary “America the Beautiful,” and you should really go see it.
The trailer:
I saw the documentary last night in San Francisco, and I almost lost my s*&# watching the editors of Elle Girl and Seventeen magazines talking about how they need to show the thin body ideal only, or they’re “out of a job.” Really — no care for the fact that you are contributing to eating disorders, self-hatred, and general depression in young women? And the answer: No, really, none at all.
And then there’s Gerren, a 12-year-old model whose mother lets her wear next to nothing on the catwalk, but won’t let her wear a bra to school because she doesn’t think it’s appropriate. Through my work with About-Face, I’ve spoken to more moms than I can count who give their daughters the very same mixed messages.
There are just so many pertinent, poignant bits in this film, one being that the whole thing flows really well and nails the problem of our culture’s beauty obsession in a way that no somewhat-smart woman can deny. And two being that it’s an African-American man who made the film and who includes many other African-Americans who truly have something to say.
If you look carefully, you’ll spot two About-Face posters in the film! (I wish About-Face had been around to be in the movie!)
Really, I could go on and on. But I won’t.
Bring your mom, bring your friends, bring your sister. Hey, bring your brother. Cuz guys need to know this stuff too. (Plus there are quite a few bits about men and their body image too.)
I saw the film in San Francisco, where it opens at the new Sundance Kabuki on Friday. Click here for other theaters throughout the nation.
Take Action:
1) See the movie! Bring your people! Click here for theaters throughout the nation.
2) E-mail the filmmaker, Darryl Roberts, about why you appreciate the movie so well (even if you haven’t seen it yet).
3) Call or walk into your local theater and ask them to show this film.
4) Comment on the online or print articles about this film (including this one), singing its praises and adding to an intelligent debate.
–J.B.
August 27th, 2008
Recently we came across an honest, enlightening account of a mother and daughter’s experience with eating disorders, and we thought you should know about it. Distorted, a book by Lorri Antosz Benson and her daughter Taryn Leigh Benson, chronicles the experiences they respectively shared while Taryn was battling eating disorders as a teenager.
Distorted is an honest and holistic account of what happens when a loved one is struggling with a disease. I’m keen on emphasizing the word disease because this was the first time I deeply understood the fact that an eating disorder is a disease. It may play out differently than alcoholism, but the common link is that both alcoholics and people with eating disorders are consumed by their addiction.
The book is made up of journal entries submitted by the mother and daughter as they live through their experiences. This helps the reader understand the full impact of the disorder and how it affected the lives of everyone involved. Taryn’s entries recount the time of her disorder, and go in depth to explain her battle, the amount of time, energy and focus she put into her disorder, and how she covered it all up to keep it from her parents and her friends. The entries by Lorri, Taryn’s mother, account for the sadness, helplessness, and struggle the family faced and how the family was affected by Taryn’s disease. In great detail, we hear how she, as a mother, did everything possible to research and find solutions to help Taryn and how she coped with watching someone that she loves spiral downward. The reader is able to experience the transformation of both of these women. Through various methods of treatment, therapy, and personal conviction, Taryn finally gets to a place when she realizes she wants to survive and to treat herself well, and Lorri realizes that the only way Taryn will get better is if she wants to. The reader is able to see Lorri struggling with this concept in most of the book.
It was powerful to see the honesties (and dishonesties) of emotions unfold in the book. There is a moment when Taryn returns from her first eating disorder facility. Her parents hope she really is okay and has recovered, and her younger sisters, being more naïve and hopeful, think she is “cured.” However, as the weeks pass, the family begins to see familiar patterns and see Taryn’s drastic mood swings. One entry made by Lorri is particularly powerful for a mother to admit and feel:
“As I a saw my other two girls suffering, it was hard not to feel resentment towards Taryn. Although I intellectually knew she was also hurting, emotionally I hated what her inability to cope was doing for the rest of us. And of course, I couldn’t confront her, although my instincts told me to. I could hear the party line playing in my head. ‘She is harder on herself than we could ever be.’ So I journaled.”
While we have heard of stories in the media about girls with eating disorders, some simply sensationalistic, Taryn and Lorri’s account is real and sincere. This book is great for anyone to read who is recovering from an eating disorder and for those whose loved ones are dealing with one.
To buy the book, click here. Amazon.com gives About-Face a percentage of the proceeds from sales from our web site.
- A.J.
July 21st, 2008
The Devil Wears Prada meets a drill sergeant in this best-selling diet book, Skinny Bitch. Does that recipe sound unappealing to you, too?
Blech. It smacks of chick-lit friendly marketing with that totally hip touch of sass (read: swearing). So what is it really? A vegan diet book. Apparently it’s light on the recipes because it’s chock full of “tough-love for savvy girls”. Huh?
Look, I’m cool with veganism. And I’m all about eating less-processed foods. But it is a bald-faced lie to tell people that veganism will make everyone—no matter their body type or genetic profile—skinny. There can be health benefits that come along with cutting out meat and dairy, but that does not automatically result in elongated torsos, designer sunglasses, and a Hollywood-ready little black dress (right, front cover?).
Also, reading the title feels like chewing on tinfoil to me. There’s a lame smugness to it—it assumes that all non-skinny women are jealous of skinny ones, that all skinny women are bitches, that becoming skinny automatically lends you an air of superiority. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
It’s dumb female-to-female hostility dressed up as faux empowerment, and to me, that goes down worse than last night’s barbecued seitan.
-A.I.
March 25th, 2008
This is my diabetes kit. Dealing with the blood-sugar testing, hypoglycemic episodes, insulin-pump management and/or insulin injections is no party. But the consequences of NOT dealing with them are severe.
A couple years ago, I got a dreadful sinus infection, found myself trotting to the bathroom several times an hour, and dropped about 15 pounds in six weeks. I had developed Type 1 diabetes (a.k.a. insulin-dependent or juvenile diabetes). It felt weird to tell friends about my new disease. But the conversations kept bumping to an awkward halt, right around the time the other person said—and I am not making this up—”You lost 15 pounds? God, you’re lucky.” After I’d just explained that I have a chronic disease.
Not long after that, my sister called me and asked, “It’s really bad if you don’t take your insulin, right?” I launched into an explanation of the disastrous things that can result if a Type 1 diabetic doesn’t take insulin. She had a new friend, a woman in her 30s, who was diabetic and systematically did not treat it. The friend was obsessed with being skinny, my sister told me. It was the first time I even contemplated deliberately abusing this disease in the pursuit of the waifish figure I’d recently acquired.
Evidently there’s a name being (informally) used to describe the practice: diabulimia.
I have often said that I can’t imagine what it would be like to have this disease as a teenager. The urge to treat it like a new variety of eating disorder would be so tempting, especially in light of the compromised self-confidence that can be a side effect of a chronic disease.
But stop and think about the reason an insulin-dependent diabetic loses weight if she doesn’t take her insulin: The body doesn’t have a way to convert sugar into energy, so the body instead devours muscle and fat, in the process drastically weakening itself and kicking a large amount of toxins called ketones into the bloodstream. Meanwhile, the sugar that’s left adrift in the bloodstream is merrily wreaking havoc on as many organs and systems as it can.
The side effects of uncontrolled diabetes—aside from ketoacidosis, slow starvation, coma, and death—include nerve damage, kidney failure, heart disease, and blindness. As a woman, it’s dangerous to conceive a baby if you have high blood sugar because the fetus can develop severe birth defects; the rate of miscarriage is also higher than in the general population.
Being thin could never be worth any of that. I’ve said that in some ways I feel lucky to have Type 1 diabetes, because an enormous component of the treatment is simply leading a healthy lifestyle: eating mindfully, staying active, being aware of what’s going on with my body and asking questions when I have them. I realize that those people who said I was lucky to have a disease whose side effect was uncontrolled weight loss were just toeing the party line of our expectations of our bodies. Shouldn’t the main expectation be health?
-A.A.
Alison Aves is a professional writer, editor, and diabetes handler living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She can be contacted at alavessf@gmail.com.
June 28th, 2007
We came across a posting on the San Francisco Chronicle’s Daily Dish a few weeks ago, on Allegra Versace’s battle with anorexia. Here are some excerpts from the post:
Fashion queen Donatella Versace’s daughter Allegra is under medical care, battling a serious eating disorder.
Donatella, 52, has expressed her heartache and has admitted Allegra was being “consumed” by the illness, and pleaded with the media to “respect our pain.”
She says, “My daughter is very ill. Anorexia is consuming her and we are very worried. However, the doctors are doing all they can to snatch her away from this cruel disease and we have faith in them.
“Please think of us and respect our pain. Many mothers will know well what I am going through and what my daughter is risking.”
It’s disturbing to see this as gossip-worthy. Why is a disease a hot topic? Let’s say they found out that Allegra had breast cancer. Would they show her in her hospital bed, post-mastectomy, with a shaved head, struggling to recover? Second, Allegra’s mother runs one of the world’s top fashion companies. Will she see a connection between her daughter’s illness and the effects of the fashion industry on women’s body image? Here’s what Marcella, our eating disorders expert, had to say about it:
“I really dislike this type of coverage. There is always picture of the physically ill person so that we can look at her as some kind of circus freakshow. I am curious to see how and if this evolves. It just seems so twisted to have one of the top fashion designers’ daughters have an eating disorder. Right now, this story does not sit well for me because it is ignoring the obvious elephant in the room. I think it would be powerful if ‘Mom’ Donatella could perhaps see how toxic her line of work is for a growing girl around body image and make a statement about this and include more diversity in body shapes and sizes for her clothes and runway models.
I am glad there is more coverage on eating disorders in popular media, I just don’t like the way it is being covered, and many experts in the field hold my opinion.”
What do you think?
–A.J.
April 17th, 2007
Previous Posts
And then there’s Gerren, a 12-year-old model whose mother lets her wear next to nothing on the catwalk, but won’t let her wear a bra to school because she doesn’t think it’s appropriate. Through my work with About-Face, I’ve spoken to more moms than I can count who give their daughters the very same mixed messages.