2. Thin (2006)
Thin is a cinema verite documentary made for HBO about the lives of several women tormented by eating disorders in a residential unit. It deals with the lives of these women in the clinic as they go through therapy, mealtimes and the official regimes, but it also portrays the women's turbulent relationships with each other and what they get up to when no eyes are upon them. The main participants are: Shelly, a 25 year old psychiatric nurse who has had 10 hospitalisations and comes to Renfrew weighing 85 lbs. She is addicted to psychiatric drugs and suffers from severe mood swings. Polly has been at the unit for 9 weeks. She tried to kill herself after eating two slices of pizza, describing it as the "straw that broke the camel's back". She celebrates her 30th birthday at the unit and seems to be making progress with her anorexia but she is a persistent rule breaker. She is thrown out. Polly died by suicide in 2008. Brittany is a 15 year old girl who lost nearly 100 lbs in under a year. She has hair loss, liver damage and a low pulse rate. She is treatment resistant and expresses the desire to lose more weight. Her insurance runs out and she has to leave the centre. She restricted after discharge and lost weight rapidly but her insurance wouldn't pay for treatment. Alisa is a 30 year old divorced mother of two who describes massive binge and purge sessions which coupled with the abuse of diuretics, laxatives and ipecac leave her frequently hospitalised with severe dehydration. Interspersed with this are days when she will restrict to 200 calories. She does well in recovery but has a severe relapse and attempts suicide. A second stay at the centre is more profitable and she now leads a normal life. This is a film that unless you have had an eating disorder, you are not really going to understand. You are more likely to look at these young women and think "Why the heck are they destroying themselves in such a determined manner?" - it may seem like gratuitous self destruction. It is only when you have had an eating disorder that you understand the terrible grip that the illness has upon them. Whenever your weight goes below a certain level, you are no longer capable of thinking rationally for yourself - your mind goes crazy and all you can think about is losing the next pound. It is an obsession. Weight gain becomes the most terrifying thing in the world. The girls in this film reflect this terror. It is a miserable disease and on one level you are desperate to get rid of it but on the other hand you are a slave to it and its constant demands to go further and further into the world of weight loss. The behaviour of the girls in the film reflect this agonising dichotomy - for example consenting to in patient treatment but breaking the rules by purging. Recovery is a terrifying experience and Lauren Greenfield has capably captured the double edged sword in her documentary. 5%-20% of people with anorexia will die from it.