Eating disorder movies comments

Here are some reviews on eating disorder movies that I find interesting because they picture the environment of a person living with an ED.

You can observe how the girl that suffers from the eating disorder interacts with her mother, her father, and her friends. You can observe some of the eating habits as well.

If you have a daughter with an eating disorder, you could make good use of watching this movies.

When making the comments about this movies I have three basic intentions:

• Expanding the comprehension of the inner world of a person with eating disorders.
• Commenting on the familiar situation.
• Highlighting what I find to be the most illustrative on each movie.

Hope you find this helpful


Sharing the secret
10 May 2000 (USA)
Written by Lauren Currier
Starred by Alison Lohman and Mare Winningham

I liked this movie, because as Beth, I suffered my parents divorce at my teens and my parents took pretty much the same attitude of "everything is ok" when it was not.

Parents split and a Beth has to pretend she is still happy, she develops bulimia as a way to cope since she is not given the opportunity to grief her parents divorce.

Her mothers looses the focus. She is more worried about being a "good mother" and keeping everything going "right" than actually paying attention to Beth's needs of grievance. She denies the fact that Beth and herself have something to be sad about.


The Secret Life of Mary Margaret : Portrait of a Bulimic
USA(1992)
Starred by Calista Flockhart
(my favorite so far!!)

I also loved this documentary. In only thirty minutes it depicts years of my life. It talks about:

• Growing in a family where appearances were important.
• Being taught not to show her feelings.
• The sensation of being ugly and empty in spite of being beautiful on the outside.
• Learning to dislike yourself from your mother.
• Feeling that no matter how you change your outside, you keep on feeling bad on the inside.
• Having friends and appearing to be happy while feeling alone.
• No matter what you do or say, parents never seem to be satisfied (sensation of never being good enough)
• Eating habits.
• Dating and friends.
• Fear of stopping the bad eating habits.
• Parents reaction when finding out.
• Fooling doctors
• Finding help

This movie made me think of:

• Mothers/parents not letting girls be themselves.
• Why parents control can lead to self-destructive behavior.
• The love-hate feeling towards my own mother.

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