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Are Teen Girls Really That Fragile?
What Do Girls Want? Chastity By Twilight
New York, 9:49 AM
Sat Nov 28
29 posts in the last 24 hours
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05/11/09
I remember reading something about the book Wasteland which went into detail about EDs and it was banned in eating disorder clinics. It was like their bible, even though it was supposed to be an anti-ED book.
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But that doesn't mean a book about ED can't impact a healthy girl. It's sort of like how The Lovely Bones and Lucky really scared a lot of girls I know into never walking alone at night. It didn't really do that for me, since it's extremely rare for a woman to be raped by a random stranger. It happens, but it's always a rare case.
I think the best thing for people to do is to try and help kids understand the difference between fantasy and reality. They'll be better off for it.
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Same goes with EDs. You might have a parent who says that being fat is ridiculous and anybody who doesn't have a BMI of 20 or less are fat whales, right in front of their daughter, who's healthy and has never thought about succumbing to an ED, but her lack of self-esteem and desire to please that parent might drive her to starve herself or purge.
Sorry if this sounds confusing...it sounded better in my head.
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I read it about 2 weeks ago it left me feeling very upset. To me, it read as what I call trauma porn- books that I do think can make vulnerable teens act out in ways that emulate the characters.
I worked as a teen librarian, and saw girls take home Cut, and come in with scratches on their arms- I'm not saying it's cause and effect at all, but that maybe sometimes some of these books make these things seem more understandable, relatable, familiar, and maybe easier to try...
Of course I would buy the book if I was still in a YA librarian position, and as I said, I read it as soon as I could when it came out, and really respect Laurie Halse Anderson as a writer and as someone teen girls will request books by months ahead of publication, but I do kind of see the author's point in raising the question. Lia's frenzied and interrupted thoughts and the calorie counting had me thinking more about my lunch than I ever do, and I feel lucky not to be vulnerable about that right now, but think that in high school, it would have been 'triggery' for me.
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"An intelligent book that shows one of the most jarring portraits we've seen of the physical and psychological consequences of ED is unlikely to make a healthy young woman sick, and may well prove salutary and sobering to quite a few."-I completely agree with this, and it's the justification I would use if this book were challenged at our school.
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It didn't have a good effect on me, to be honest. I idealized those characters. But that's not to say other teens will react the same way; if I had been slightly older I probably would have the sense to separate it from reality.
05/11/09
It's a toughie. From my experience I kind of want to protect my hypothetical children from that kind of thing, given their genetic disposition to depression and addiction, but that just drives it underground and makes it glamorous for them in a different way.
Hmmm, so many reasons not to ever have kids just keep piling up!
05/11/09
I think it's because despite the pain and suffering created by the drugs or whatever, in these movies life looks so GRAND. There's high highs and low lows, and the experience of living seems deep and important. People want that more than they want basic happiness in life. They are willing to take the suffering with it. So these movies often have the opposite effect as the filmmakers intend.
05/11/09
It's so true, they aren't necessarily glamorizing drugs, more the lifestyle that goes with them. When I watched those movies I would give anything to not lead a middle class suburban lifestyle, no matter what the consequences. The movies depict beautiful people making intense friendship connections, when at the start they were usually suburban misfit outcasts (like me!). Maybe that's also a connection, that drugs are portrayed as bringing you into to a close friendship group that a lot of young lonely teens totally crave, whilst not realizing how destructive and enabling drug-buddy type relationships are.
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I can't tell you how many women I was in the hospital with that picked up ED tricks from Lifetime movies. Does everyone who watches a Lifetime movie about anorexia or bulimia pick up tricks and tips? No. I think having an ED just makes you more susceptible to such things.
05/11/09
I think the book would offer a chance to open a dialogue about eating disorders between the readers (one would assume teenagers) and their peers and parents. Then again, I've never had an eating disorder, so I may be over or under estimating the effects.
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