San Diego Union Tribune |
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Powerful 'Thin' tells the stories of women with eating disorders By Joanne Ostrow NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE November 14, 2006 The patients at the Renfrew facility in Florida are awakened at dawn for weigh-ins and tests of their vital signs. The staff can tell whether they've “purged” overnight by checking blood pressure. The anorexic and bulimic young women with proudly protruding shoulder blades, spinal columns and elbows sit through strictly monitored meals, daily therapy sessions and group “community” discussions. Their various obsessions with food, self-image and weight become clear. One went from compulsive overeating in childhood to the bulimic cycle of bingeing and purging as a teen. Another describes her fast-food binge-purge cycles in alarming detail, noting they resulted in multiple hospitalizations. A third, sunk in depression and aware that she is somehow competing with her twin sister, says weakly, “I used to have a personality.” All of these women acknowledge that the desperate drive to be thin has overtaken their lives. They have been told by professionals that one in seven women with anorexia dies of the illness. But being thin is what they are about: “If it takes dying to get there, so be it.” “Thin,” a powerful documentary by filmmaker/photographer Lauren Greenfield, premieres tonight on HBO. The film follows four young women at the 40-bed Renfrew Center for the treatment of eating disorders in Coconut Creek, Fla. Brittany, 15, is a former “fat” kid who has struggled with eating disorders since age 8. Shelly, 25, is a nurse who has battled anorexia for six years, and who enters Renfrew with a feeding tube surgically implanted in her stomach. Alisa, 30, is a divorced mother of two who arrives at Renfrew after five hospital stays in three months. She has no interest in recovery. The most dynamic and disruptive is Polly, 29, who has spent years in and out of treatment. Greenfield gained remarkable access to these women and their stories, living at the facility for six months. The camera is unobtrusive as it chronicles tense therapy sessions, tearful mealtimes and revolting bathroom practices, examining personally abusive habits without compromise. Some of the patients get better; some sabotage their recovery; and one is documented doing well until her insurance runs out. Credit Greenfield, producer R.J. Cutler (“The War Room”) and the network with making the film part of an educational campaign to reach out to schools nationally to shine a light on eating disorders. http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061114/news_lz1c14thin.html |