THIN

In this weeks blog I will be talking about the film we watched in class called THIN. This film was in deed disturbing but necessary to show to create a conversation about eating disorders and their treatment. I have very mixed feelings about treatment for eating disorders and if they are really effective. The movie featured a few girls and each of their testimonies was similar but different in a sense. One of the girls, actually the youngest out of the bunch, fifteen year old Brittany was so obsessed with being thin she’d risk her life to meet that goal. I can remember at the end of the film when she was being discharged because her insurance ran out the other women in the center were trying to give her positive advice and Brittany just wasn’t getting it nor trying to listen I remember her saying something to the affect “I don’t want people to worry about me if I die” and that struck a cord for me because I just don’t understand nor see the point of trying to achieve a certain weight even if its going to take your life, how are you supposed to enjoy you reaching your goal if you’re dead? Although I don’t understand how these girls feel and what they go through, there are other women out there who can relate to Brittany. A quote taken from one of the readings The Body Politic relates specifically to Brittany and her situation “I felt powerful as an anorexic. Controlling my body yielded an illusion of control over my life; I received incessant praise for my figure despite my sickly mien, and my frailty manipulated family and friends into protecting me from conflict. (180)” I can partially understand Brittany’s need to want to loose weight because as she often said she was heavy as a young child and was picked on and didn’t want to go back to the feeling of being teased by other girls.
Shelly, another young woman in the center had a severe eating disorder and had actually been to many treatment facilities and was not trusted by the staff. She was often accused of purging and on one occasion hiding food. The most interesting thing I noticed about Shelly was that she was so focused on being independent and having to take on certain responsibilities and be on her own. I believe she felt comfort within the center because this was her way of escaping reality which would make it easy to understand how she so quickly bonded with a group of girls.
Another topic to look at to determine how effective these treatment centers are is to look at the problem of insurance coverage. Most of the girls were discharged after their insurance refused to pay anymore. The film showed that while the women were in the center treatment was very effective but as soon as they were released most of them returned to their old behaviors and were back where they started before treatment and some worse off. I don’t understand the whole treatment process and why have these types of programs if they are only temporary while closely being monitored. I don’t mean to sound so critical but this seems like a big gimmick for those in that profession because they rotate girls in and of the centers collecting their money but not looking out for the full, total interest of the patient. Speaking of interest of the patient, I really didn’t agree with the discharge of Polly. Although the staff didn’t trust her and she had done thing against their policy I feel they should have taken a different approach such as putting her in seclusion or penalizing her in some way. I had to question what the true motives were of the center and was it truly centered around the FULL treatment the patient.
By no means am I implying that treatment centers are bad I actually believe that they are helpful when the total focus is on the patient’s betterment.