Brittany started dieting at age 12 because she wanted to look like her classmates.After gaining weight in an eating disorder treatment center, the under 100-pound teen grabs at the skin under her chin, sobbing. She thinks she has a double chin.
Shelly has a tube that runs out of her stomach because she’s so sick, and she’s found a way to push her stomach the right way so the food she’s eaten is sucked out. At just over 80 pounds, Shelly thinks she is “big.”
These women are among those documented in the 2006 film, “Thin,” a powerful and candid documentary I watched for the first time this week. I was immensely moved by it, and recommend every young girl, woman, and woman’s advocate rent it. Director Lauren Greenfield captures the secret lives of those living with this crippling diseases of anorexia and bulimia.
Here is a clip from the documentary with commentary by the director, Lauren Greenfield. Some of the images are graphic.
These women are addicted. They’re addicted to routines. They’re addicted to chewing food as slowly as possible, drinking water between each bite, hoarding away packets of ketchup and mustard to flavor the incredibly small portions of food they do eat. They’re addicted to their under-200-calories-a-day diets, and have panic attacks when presented a birthday cupcake. Seeing triple digits on the scale is the end of the world to them (Shelly says if she reaches 110, she’ll die), but they can’t see that their slow hearts, low blood pressure and damaged livers will be the real death of them. They are prisoners to their eating disorders–the crippling diseases of anorexia and bulimia, which are influenced by genetics but exacerbated by their environment and their insecurities.
As an aspiring documentary filmmaker, I was extremely intrigued by the cinema verité style of this film — where the camera crew act as flies on the wall, capturing everything — and amazed by how comfortable the girls were with the cameras catching them in their most intimate moments — being weighed, crying, even purging. One of the subjects, when interviewed after the film, said she felt misunderstood and wanted to show the world the truth behind her disorder. “Hey, if there is somebody out there who could benefit from this, then I would like to participate,” she said.
These women identify themselves by their ability to lose weight, by their years-long routines of avoiding meals, purging, and shrinking in size. They know they have to gain weight, but it terrifies them. They’re also terrified they’ll lose the part of them they know, the girl who loses more and more weight. It’s sad because I know they have so much to offer to the world besides their low jean size.
Throughout the entire film, I wanted to jump into the screen and yell at the women, tell them they’re beautiful. I wondered how they could hate their lives so much when they have beautiful children, supportive families, and college degrees. I wondered how they can possibly think what stares back in the mirror at them is ugly.
Which made me think… how often do I look in the mirror and criticize what I see? How often am I hard on myself?
While the girls are dealing with hardships in a treatment center that I can’t imagine, I can absolutely relate to their concern of body image. The film was a wake-up call. Look what body obsession can do to you. Look how much these girls have to offer the world and look how they are, literally, wasting away. Be grateful for all the support that surrounds you and be grateful for the beautiful body you have.
Check out the web site for this film and go see this movie.And if you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, it’s time to seek help immediately. Here are some resources.
I am so happy that Scarlett Johansson decided to take action against the media’s obsession with unhealthy, ultra skinny bodies! Scarlett Johansson just wrote a fantastic article called “The Skinny” for The Huffington Post. Her article responds to media coverage that claims she is on a crash diet to lose 14 pounds for her upcoming film Iron Man 2. Scarlett Johansson supports having a healthy body image and in her article writes:
I’m a petite person to begin with, so the idea of my losing this amount of weight is utter lunacy. If I were to lose 14 pounds, I’d have to part with both arms. And a foot. I’m frustrated with the irresponsibility of tabloid media who sell the public ideas about what we should look like and how we should get there.
Way to go, Scarlett! She is definitely on the team of About-Face winners. Please click here to read the whole article.
I recently found myself disembarking the Macy’s escalator and walking into the world of hip young adults. Once my ears adjusted to the blaring music of Miley Cyrus, my eyes had time to focus on the image standing right before me. Here it is.
Yes, this was at Macy's in Torrance, CA
Four anorexic-looking mannequins, all in “skinny” jeans, and in between them hung six cards, each with one of the following letters imprinted on it: S-K-I-N-N-Y.
Really, Macy’s!?! Really? This is getting kind of old already. I have become accustomed to the waif-thin mannequins sporting bodies that the majority of human beings cannot attain without the help of anorexia. But to focus your display on the word “skinny” is taking the assault on women’s image to a new level.
I know, I get it: Skinny jeans, hence the S-K-I-N-N-Y. I get it. But with the addition of the word “skinny” to the size 2 mannequins, they are communicating to the “non-skinnies” that these pants are not for them. Mainstream advertising is once again reminding the world that to be skinny is glamorous and should be what everyone strives for.
What really infuriated me about this display was the effect it might have on the hundreds of girls who have walked and will walk past the display. Girls who have not been supplied with a proper self-esteem and/or the tools to refuse this image. It made me think of what I would have done if I had a teenage daughter with me at the time. My initial thought was that I would have turned around and left immediately, so that she would never have to experience the image. But wouldn’t it be better if I, in fact, pointed out the display and discussed it? Absolutely.
I encourage anyone who reads this to try and do the same. If you are ever in the company of a young girl — a cousin, niece, sister or daughter — communicate about the images of women around you. Only then, by spreading the idea that these images are unacceptable, can we finally begin to bring some change to advertising.
I will never be S-K-I-N-N-Y. I will always want, in the famous words of Spinal Tap, to keep some “cushion for the pushin’.'” After all, I want the body of a woman, not that of a pre-pubescent boy.
This display was in the young women’s section of the Macy’s at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, CA. Stop on by and tell a manager what you think, write a letter, or pick up the phone and give a call.
Macy’s Del Amo Fashion Center
21600 Hawthorne Blvd.
Torrance, CA 90503
phone: 310/370-8511
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.
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.)
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.
