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People with eating disorders are recommending ‘To The Bone’ to each other in pro-anorexia chatrooms
It doesn’t matter if the intentions are good
“280 for the pork, 350 for the buttered noodles, 150 for the roll and 75 for butter,” Lily Collin’s Netflix original “To The Bone” opens with her counting calories in a way that isn’t dissimilar to what’s happening in pro-ana chatrooms around the country.
A few weeks ago Netflix released the first trailer for the film about a 20-year-old battling an eating disorder, and it was immediately met with skepticism.
Is this the “13 Reasons Why” of EDs?
Comments about how people suffering from such disorders might be triggered popped up, and then disappeared — except in a few darker corners of the internet. The corners where it matters most.
When Tumblr banned and then reintroduced (albeit with an “is everything OK?” firewall) #thinspo and #proana searches a few years ago, it felt for a moment like personal blogging sites were safe from such topics. But they weren’t, they just learned to adapt.
Thousands of young people took to Twitter and chatrooms and carried on “helping” each other, in a way, closer than they’d been before.
With social media expanding, and the world becoming a bit smaller, users started exchanging Snapchats and Instagrams as a way of keeping tabs on each other.
Chatrooms like the one below were here before “To The Bone,” and they’ll likely be here long after, but what’s undeniable is that the film has pro-ana strangers asking to use each other’s Netflix accounts so they can watch.
Here is the conversation in just one pro-ana chat room about it
User 1: “I’m still trying to find To The Bone.”
User 2: “Okay, I set up an account for Netflix.”
User 1: “Thank you so so much.”
User 3: “It was hard to get through, I cried.”
And other pro-ana accounts are weighing in on the conversation as well
‘It’s very triggering’
‘Don’t watch it if you’re recovering or trying to’
‘It’ll be better for your mind/body to avoid it’
While others are trying to watch it without people noticing their relapse
‘He has no idea I’m triggering myself’
Whether or not certain actors, or people working on the show, have suffered from eating disorders, is besides the point.
They may see themselves as shining a light on the issue, but perhaps what we’re not aware of yet, is what kind of light.