“P.er a well-known television broadcast we are looking for girls aged 20 to 25 suffering from eating disorders. If you have these characteristics, write to me ”: this is the announcement made in recent days (author Giada Massara, probably for the Forum broadcast, but this is not the point). Maruska Albertazzi, actress, activist of the Lilla Movement and director of the film, was the first to denounce the seriousness and possible effects on girls suffering from anorexia of such an invitation.Hangry Butterflies, available on RaiPlay (tells the story of the anorexia self-help community).
Anorexia is the leading cause of death among psychological diseases
But also those who have been dealing with anorexia for a lifetime like Fabiola De Clercq, president of Aba (Bulimia Anorexia Association)can not be silent: «Anorexia is the leading cause of death among psychological diseases. It is a disease, it is very serious and there is still much, too much ignorance about its implications“. The announcement therefore reveals, above all, this truth: we know nothing about it.
Saying “wanted anorexic” is not like saying “wanted single mothers”
“Saying anorexic wanted is not the same as saying single mothers or diabetic patients wanted: anorexics do not want to get well, they experience their skeletal being as a triumph“. Whoever offers them a stage does not clear the sickness but feeds the disease, and “consecrates this triumph of theirs”.
Fabiola De Clercq
De Clercq has a lot of experience, both personally and in the field: she has been anorexic for twenty years, starting from 13, she responds every day in the first person to the green line of her association. Most of the girls suffering from anorexia, she says, are between 23 and 24 years old, as the announcement asks. “But there is an increase in applications for help for 13-year-old girls: 13, not 14. They are girls: if they have not developed the cycle, they risk not developing it anymore ». Perhaps as a result of the lockdown, they face complex situations in which almost total fasting is combined with other self-injurious behaviors. “What you don’t understand from the outside is that they don’t live in the same world as ours: for them there is only the food-body-weight, food-body-weight triad”. An endless loop to which, really, you don’t need a propaganda vehicle like a TV casting.
Food-body-weight: a mental loop that is a dead end tunnel
“They are closed in a dialogue with themselves and with their scalesContinues De Clercq. “When they start asking me how I am, how I am, I understand that they are starting to feel a little better, because they begin to take an interest in something other than food-body-weight.” Invite them on TV to talk about that? A boomerang for their recovery.
“There are those who, for example in the hospital, when they are hospitalized, let them speak: e they can talk for hours about what nothing they will eat», Continues the president of Aba:« As soon as they start, I leave them alone. “Talking about food bores me to death,” I say. Only by avoiding that topic, you can start talking about something else“.
An image explains what De Clercq calls image dispersion. The bitten apple is seen in the mirror as it is not (photo Getty)
Anorexia and the relationship with the mother
It is not sweet, Fabiola De Clercq: «I do not console them, and I do not console the mothers who bring them to me. Often, not always, they are responsible for what happens to their daughters: they themselves have to start a therapeutic path if they want their daughters to recover ». A sharper weapon than consolation is irony: “Anyone who takes themselves too seriously, and I mean therapists, patients and mothers of patients, forgets to live. It must also be remembered when you are in front of a little girl who is making herself out before our eyes», He says, proving the strength, even verbal, of his straightforward manners.
Anorexia and the responsibility of the media
You know. In addition to the relationship with the mother, the other responsible for the anorexia phenomenon is the media system. For the feminine images of extreme thinness that it spreads. «It’s true, but up to a certain point», says De Clercq: «The image of the model attracts because she is thin but then that thinness is immediately“ overcome ”. The girl is losing weight, but at 30 kilos of weight, she still feels fat: in this regard, we are talking about image despair“.
The goal is not to dress certain clothes with the same elegance as the model. “Indeed, the anorexic covers herself: two layers of trousers, endless scarves. He dies of cold. And she has no interest in looking beautiful. ” Of course, appearing and showing that she is the “skinny one”, invited on a program to talk about how much she is, that she would probably like. But she wouldn’t help her.
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