Anorexia, My Family & Me (RTÉ One, Monday 9.35pm) is narrated by the TV presenter Angela Scanlon, who recently revealed that she struggled with anorexia and bulimia for 15 years.
She brings great empathy to a documentary that contains both heartbreak and hope as it chronicles the experiences of three Irish families whose lives have been hijacked by eating disorders. The stories are wrenching, and at moments the rawness of the emotions on the screen makes for harrowing viewing – but that’s as it should be given the seriousness of the subject, and RTÉ must be commended for addressing the topic with empathy and without sensationalism.
In Co Wicklow we meet 16-year-old Josh, whose health is jeopardised by a failure to put on weight. “I just want my child to be here in the future,” his mother, Jenny, says after he is admitted to a psychiatric ward to ensure he takes on calories and reduces the strain on his heart.
The film also introduces Amanda, a 36-year-old from Coolock in Dublin, who talks about how anorexia has been the defining feature of her life since adolescence. “When I was a teenager is when I started to compare myself to other people’s bodies,” she says. “It was … something that was growing inside my head from probably 14, and has never ever left since then.”
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In Swords, Co Dublin, Seán, a 42-year-old father of four, describes how overexercising and undereating were manifestations of the low self-esteem he has experienced all his life. He lost so much weight at one point that his wedding ring became too big for his fingers and would fall off.
Ireland is living through an eating-disorder epidemic: there has been an unprecedented rise in cases in recent years, according to Dr Kielty Oberlin of Bodywhys: The Eating Disorders Association of Ireland. “When one person in the family has an eating disorder, the whole family has an eating disorder,” she says, meaning that anorexia comes to define not only the life of the sufferer but also the lives of those closest to them.
It’s characterised “by a person restricting, so they cut out more and more of the foods that the body needs for its nutritional value”. Hunger then “becomes the new normal”, says Oberlin, who adds that people who develop eating disorders invariably have low self-esteem.
In Swords, Seán agrees. “The level of self-hate I’ve had all my life has been massive,” he says, explaining that he would go jogging at 5am on an empty stomach, chasing weight loss and running away from the person he was. “It made me want to waste away to nothing – to just disappear.”
Seán, who continues to chart his daily dietary habits, feels he is in recovery. In Wicklow, Josh’s mother monitors his eating under an intervention known as FBT, or family-based treatment. In Coolock, Amanda attends a multidisciplinary treatment service. It has given her mother, Doreen, a glimmer of optimism – “I think there’s a slight improvement,” she says.
The hope must be that a slight improvement becomes a more substantial one and that Amanda, Josh and Seán all receive the support they need, and that they focus on the many positives in their lives. Perhaps sharing their stories will help them on their way to better times.
The bodywhys.ie helpline is at 01-2107906, or email alex@bodywhys.ie
