supersize vs superskinny encourages anorexia

[anorexicdaughter]

hello. my daugher aged 14 has recently become anorexic and obviously we are very distressed as a family. i watched this programme for the first time this week when i realised my daughter is hooked on it, and i was appalled by the irresponsibility of it. my daughter admitted to me that she doesn't relate to the anorexics at all because they are way worse than she is, and the skinny girl in the house this week was taller than her and weighed less but wasn't labelled anorexic as such. my daughter said the images she sees as gross are the ones of the obese people and she lives in fear of becoming like them. my daughter's school has described anorexia as an epidemic right now and they don't know why. i think i just hit on one of the reasons why with this damn programme which should be banned. does anyone have any thoughts as to how to get the message across effectively to channel 4?? much appreciated.

I have to disagree.
Why would you be appalled at a programme that tries to encourage people who are over/underweight to look at what they eat & their relationship with food?

my point about the latest programme was that the girl in the house was NOT labelled anorexic, but just too thin with lousy eating habits. That girl is taller than my daughter and weighs less, thus my daughter deduced from the programme that she is doing just fine thanks and that we as her family and the clinic who are treating her are all wrong. that's where the programme fell down for me and was completely irresponsible. you don't have to weigh 5 stone to be anorexic.
the local camhs clinic where my daughter is being treated described the recent enormous increase in eating disorder cases as an epidemic and they are clearly oversubscribed and are possibly not able to give as much help as is needed to these young people. it strikes me that there is a very strong correlation between the increase in the popularity of this programme and the increase in eating disorder cases, so nobody can convince me that the programme is helping to solve eating disorders.
does anyone at mumsnet know the best route to get complaints heard seriously by channel 4?

Stop spammingt the boards. ANd your beef with channel 4 is completely misguided

enough already.

you have posted this several times.

as a newcomer to mumsnet i wondered where my point would be best heard and where i might get helpful comments back. clearly not in the telly addicts section, so i'll sign out of here with apologies for the unwelcome intrusion.

The thing is, anorexicdaughter, everyone who enters the feeding clinic has a disordered view of food and eating. None of them are being portrayed as having no problems, which is why they are there in the first place: in order to help them re-learn how to eat sensibly. They do say at the start of the show that the guests in the clinic are pre-screened and given medicals and I very much doubt that anyone would be allowed in if their problems were deeper rooted than needing a few over-large meals and the shock of seeing how ridiculous their daily diet looks fed to someone else.

I have a husband who used to regularly under eat before I married him. He was quite skinny, too. It doesn't mean he had anorexia nervosa, though. He was simply too pre-occupied with things other than food to remember to eat (in contrast with anorexics who, paradoxically, often tend to be totally obsessed with food and have rigid rituals regarding meal times.)

I'm sure you've been told this before, since form other comments (and your nick name) you appear to have quite the soap box, but I think it's a very clever program which deals with important issues in a sensitive and informative way.

Oh, and last time I checked, this wasn't the channel 4 website

I am sorry your dd is having problems, it must be very worrying for your family

Your venting on here is misguided though (as you have probably discovered already)

Good luck