You know the problem with eating disorders ? They're just so photogenic! There are the young women or " even better " girls; the celebrities and fashion magazines that are, of course, the cause of eating disorders; female body shape and, thrillingly, the food that is eaten or, in this case, not eaten to obtain that shape; women who are, you know, a bit tragic and might even die.
With such a catalogue of attributes no wonder the media love a good eating disorder story. In fact, it's hard to think of a single other subject that combines so many pieces of media catnip. It even beats that annual classic, an A-level success story, even ones involving triplets in vest tops getting into Cambridge .
So it's not that surprising that eating disorders made two tabloids' front pages this week. On Monday, both the Sun and the Daily Mail splashed on the story about the number of children being treated for eating disorders according to newly released statistics, focusing in particular on the number of children requiring treatment aged between five and nine. Pretty much every other newspaper also covered this issue , understandably, as this is indeed a terrible story, although it's hard to imagine a study showing that the same number of children are receiving treatment for, say, schizophrenia getting the same amount of coverage. But then, of course, schizophrenia can't be illustrated with a photo of a little girl lifting up her shirt, as the Sun did .
Both the Sun and the Daily Mail took especial care to blame "pictures in magazines", as the Sun put it, excusing itself and its fascination with female bodies from the equation. The Daily Mail cited "ultra-slim celebs" in the headline , "celebs" who are praised daily by that paper for losing "the baby weight" and other such monumental achievements. And presumably, the headlines writers didn't notice that, just inches away from the anorexia article on the website was another story on its front page debating which female celebrity has "the best bikini body" .
These stories followed on from news last week that L'Oral felt compelled to airbrush those old hags Christy Turlington and Julia Roberts in its adverts. This prompted one writer in this paper to claim that "anorexia and compulsive eating are . . . a response to" this false idealisation of women.
Everyone knows that the way women's bodies are judged in the media is sick " heck, even the papers that do it know this. How directly this leads to severe eating disorders is something I, unlike these newspapers and columnists, feel is less clear cut.
I spent almost three years straight in psychiatric hospitals being treated for severe anorexia nervosa. While I was not five years old, I was very young: young enough to not have even started my GCSEs, young enough to be, always, the youngest patient on the ward.
Unlike some newspaper columnists , I do not feel compelled to talk about my personal experiences with the mental health profession in every article I write, nor turn every story into an opportunity to talk about them. In fact, I try to avoid talking about them altogether, mainly because I hope that I have something more to offer than my history. After working so hard to recover, I'd rather not spend the rest of my life being seen through the prism of my past, permanently labelled "ex-anorexic". Talking about oneself in a newspaper is, to my mind, a little like chattering loudly at the cinema: you are not the show the audience came to see.
However, the nonsense that has been spouted of late in the media about eating disorders is too ubiquitous and too stupid, even by the low standards of the media's usual coverage of the illness. And while I would never claim that my personal experience makes me an expert on the subject, maybe it gives me a different perspective than, say, a lazy news reporter churning out cliches under a deadline or a columnist in search of easy outrage and reader traffic.
Like I said, I was very young when I was first hospitalised. Too young for fashion magazines, tabloid newspapers or even "ultra-slim celebs". After all, eating disorders have existed for hundreds of years, predating, amazingly, Kate Moss. But this is not to excuse those elements because they did complicate my eventual recovery. And it's certainly not to excuse them the way the fashion industry does , harrumphing that the obesity crisis is a more pressing problem, which is about as stupid as saying we should stop talking about any infertility issues seeing as there's such a problem with teen pregnancies.
The obsession with food and weight in the media mirrored and therefore, to my then sick mind, legitimised my own. Why should I put on weight when there are actresses out there almost as skinny as me and celebrated for it?
Eating disorders do not stem from a desire to be slim: they are an expression of unhappiness through food. The way a woman's body is equated with her human value in the media can, to someone who is subconsciously looking for a way to articulate their unhappiness, feel like the perfect solution. But this doesn't mean that the problem comes from young women looking at too many fashion adverts.
People who claim that the media are the cause of their past or present illnesses are, in fact, undermining themselves. It would be like claiming that a really great Budweiser advertising campaign made them an alcoholic. Your problem, my friend, is bigger than that.
The media is neither the cause of nor irrelevant to eating disorders. Sometimes, unfortunately, life is too complicated to fit in a snappy headline.
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