Analysis Of To The Bone

EATING DISORDERS WITH THE MOVIE "TO THE BONE" AS THE LEADING EXAMPLE
About the movie
"To the bone" is a Netflix original movie by the director Marti Noxon, that was published on January 22nd in 2017, and deals with the topic eating disorders, especially with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The two famous actors Lily Collins and Keanu Reeves play two big roles in that movie: the central character and her doctor. It is also important to mention that Marti Noxon and Lily Collins have both suffered from anorexia before, what makes the movie even more interesting. Also all the patients shown in the movie are not anorectic (anymore), they are just really thin and all the actors have been under medical supervision.
Plot
In the first scene you
see the main character Ellen, played by Lily Collins, in a hospital sitting in a therapy session and making a joke about a girl, that kind of blames society for her disorder.
Later you see her leaving the clinic, driving home to her fathers where she sees her stepmother, who is really low in empathy, and her sister. As she has a pretty good realation with her sister they start snickering and having fun because of Ellen´s "Calorie Aspergers" which simply describes her ability of knowing the specific amount of calories a certain meal has. Her dad seems to be not at home that often so Ellen´s stepmom tries to take care of the two girls. So she weighs Ellen and takes a picture of her to show her how she looks but she doesn´t really react to that. Later that day Ellen drives to a hill with her sister where they are having a deep talk in which different topics are mentioned, but Ellen is trying to curve the topic anorexia and states that she " has it all under control". Then you find out that her real Mom is lesbian and you also get the first hint on Ellen´s arm issue, where she tries to get her upper arm thin enough to fit her hand around it. The next day her stepmom decides to take her to a new doctor who uses uncommon healing methods. In the anteroom she meets another girl and in
the bathroom they come to have a conversation where Ellen´s Tumblr past is mentioned for the first time: She used to share her drawings on social media where they affected others and as they are dealing with her issue and also show dramatic situations, one day someone decides to commit suicide, but before that he wrote her a letter to tell her. Ellen´s step mom also blames that one fact for Ellen´s disorder as the watcher sees in the next scene where she tells the doctor. The other fact her stepmom blames for her issue is that her real mom is gay, which has absolutely nothing to do with that. The doctor mentions the bruises on Ellen´s spine and the over-average amount of hair on her arms, he also asks for her last period. Before he admits her to her fifth in-patient therapy, he tells her that there won´t be any conversations about food, because these are annoying and do not lead to anything. The next day she arrives at Threshold, the house where she is supposed to live for the next six weeks, and she starts meeting her housemates. First there is Anna who wants to carry her suitcase inside for special points, then she gets to know Lucas or Luke, who is a pretty funny character and elicits ones snicker several times, before she meets Lobo, the Head-nurse of Threshold. She searches for forbidden items in Ellen´s luggage and collects her electronical devices. She meets Pearl, a pretty weak patient who got a drip. Then Ellen finds out that there is no doors inside the whole house and Pearl explains that it is to prevent the patients from jogging around all night long. After that Luke gives her a tour around the house and explains the group therapy sessions every morning and also the point system, according to which you can collect points for certain chores to earn privileges, just like leaving the house by ones own. Afterwards they have their first session all together and you find out that Luke is a really positive character with a lot of goals like going out to eat in certain restaurants, such as being able to dance again. In the evening at dinner she learns more rules. All patients are allowed to eat as much as they want and if they want anything special they will get it, even though they have to stay at the table during meal times and the bathrooms stay locked until 30 minutes after. All patients are being weighed regularly. After Dinner Ellen overhears two girls speaking about purging just like it is the most normal thing in the world. And later Dr. William Beckham tells her that she is going to have a family session tomorrow with all her family being there.
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Eating disorders related to family structures
Already at the End of 19th century scientists like Gull, Lasègue and Charcot figured that Anorexia Nervosa could be closely related to familial environment. Also while watching the movie "to the bone" it could come to ones mind that Ellen´s family could have something to do with her disorder and the medical development. That is why there should be taken a closer look at her family structure and how it could have had impact on the development of her medical condition. According to medical experiences it is not the families with bigger issues that have children suffering from eating disorders, but the families from average middle classes. These families tend to be obsessed with social norms and place values on things like their duties and obligations, modesty, performance and education. Often they follow the conservative, traditional family portrait, where the father is supposed to earn money for the family and the mother should take care of the children. Leaving out the fact that Ellen´s real mother doesn´t live with her father anymore, the fact with the traditional family portrait is generally true. Her Father is at work almost all the time, earning money for the family, while her mom seems to work less and to arrange the household. Another point is that, as her parents live divorced and her mom came out lesbian, her family tries hard to appear normal, which puts even more pressure on Ellen. Ellen also seems to be very well educated, as she uses a lot of sarcasm and also has a lot of general knowledge. The point that she had to drop out of college seems to be pretty important as it gets mentioned several times by her stepmother, so also the pressure to perform plays a huge role in the development of her disease. Also manners could have played a huge role in her life before since Ellen´s half sister has a pretty good behavior and also hesitates to speak in the family therapy session to not cast a shadow on her family. What would also be typical for a family with anorexic children is, that the siblings have a ongoing competition. Even though in the movie the two girls are not really siblings, they have a sisterly relation which is pretty good, so in this case that fact is not true. It is also typical that mothers of children with eating disorders are really caring, almost over-caring When we get to know Ellen´s real mom for the first time, her reaction when seeing her daughter fits into that picture pretty good as she mothers Ellen immediately.
Then again a lot of affected people are profoundly convinced that Anorexia developed throughout the generations because of their bygone complicated family structures and then finally broke out in that one person. This theory could also be true in this case. We do not know about any older family members than Ellen´s parents, but since her mother is lesbian, it is likely that she could have had struggles with her parents before, as homosexuality was not that accepted formerly.