‘To the Bone’ sparks debates on social media

CAIRO - 3 August 2017: Netflix’s new movie ‘To the Bone’ has aggravated critics on social media about its portrayal of eating disorders.

‘To the Bone’ premiered in late January at the Sundance Film Festival. On July 15, the film was released online at Netflix. The movie instantly went viral, and people began criticizing it for its glamorization of eating disorders.

'To the Bone' follows a young girl called Ellen, portrayed by actress Lily Collens, who suffers from anorexia, an eating disorder. Ellen obsessively counts the calories of everything she eats and exercises vigorously to burn off the extra calories in order to lose weight.

The storyline of the film has been attacked on social media by eating disorder survivors for being a trigger that leads to relapse. However, director of the movie, Marti Noxo highlighted “My goal with the film was not to glamorize [eating disorders] but to serve as a conversation starter.”

Despite eating disorders being quite common, ‘To the Bone’ was the first move to solely focus on the topic. However, it disregards complexity of the matter and puts aside the many struggles people with eating disorders and survivors go through. People have also voiced their concern for Collen because she battled with an eating disorder, but had to lose weight to play the character. Many fans have said that this scenario leads to relapse.

Just like any other illness, everyone experiences eating disorders differently; however not many survivors were able to relate to the plotline. ‘To the Bone’ reflects Noxo’s experience with anorexia as a person who worked with survivors.

Despite all the criticism, conversations about eating disorders have never been louder. Although there have been many attempts to raise more awareness about mental health and eating disorders, people still struggle to find the support they need because of the stigma surrounding the notion.

If the purpose of ‘To the Bone’ was to force people to voice their experiences and concerns about eating disorders then it did just that. On the other hand, it also sends a very unrealistic glamorized impression of eating disorders, downplaying the importance of the issue, which will only reinforce the stigma.