TV anorexia

So Cora and I were watching Horseland this morning and they decided to take on the topic of anorexia. This show is pretty clearly geared to the 5-8 year old demographic so it is a little sad that they feel they need to confront eating disorders for their viewers. The in a nutshell summary: Pepper's owner Zoe is sick for a while and the other girls at the stable fail to exercise her in Zoe's absence. Pepper gains some weight. Zoe remarks on this when she gets back but says she'll get back in shape in no time. The other horses tease her about being "round" and suggest she should knock over the gates instead of trying to jump them. Pepper becomes depressed and starts hiding all the food she gets instead of eating it and exercising to excess. She loses the weight she gained and Zoe is proud of her. Then during a race she is too tired to continue and a vet tells her she has to eat properly and exercise in moderation. The other horses learn that teasing someone about their weight will give them an eating disorder.

This episode seemed to miss on a variety of levels. It doesn't seem like there are that many girls who develop eating disorders for the sole purpose of getting into better shape for an athletic event. So really Pepper's only negative effect from the eating disorder was being too tired to run in a marathon. That doesn't seem like much of a deterrent if you are not eating because you want to be thin. Also the show seemed to villify Zoe, the owner of Pepper for commenting on her weight gain at all even though her attitude was very positive and she committed to helping to get her back into shape through appropriate exercise. I guess I'm confused about what the take home is here. I think it was something like this: if you are overweight it is your parents' fault for not forcing you to exercise. (this is possibly legit, but probably not a good blanket statement to make) If they comment on it and encourage exercise they are bad people. Making fun of your friend's weight is bad. (ok, that one seems like a good message) Commenting on your child's weight = eating disorder. (that seemed bad since the "mom" owner was very healthy and positive about it) Making fun of your friend = eating disorder. (seems like eating disorders are way more complicated that this) Eating disorder = not eating and exercising too much. (sometimes) Not eating and exercising too much will make you svelte really quickly. (yikes) Eating disorders make you tired. (seems like there are way worse side effects too anorexia)

This episode seems to fit into the genre of hilarious issue episodes that tackle eating disorders in really bizarre ways. I should point out that the true irony of this episode is that the human girls in the show have legs that are toothpick sized and giant heads. This is just a guess, but it seems like drawing characters that resemble healthy body shapes might do more to prevent anorexia than awkwardly tackling it in an anorexic horse episode. Picture of anorexic horse and un-anorexic rider below.



Perhaps my favorite hilarious eating disorder episode of all time is the fantastic Full House episode called "Shape Up." It is right up there with the "I'm so excited" Saved by the Bell episode for instantly recognizable quotes -- "because they're beautiful!" and "Charlie Brown cheeks" are forever part of the TGIF vernacular. Sadly I could not find the clip I was looking for, but someone did this mashup of DJ's tumble into anorexia and around the 3 minute mark you get the quotes in all their melodramatic glory.



I don't think either of these episodes were meant to be funny, but they are. They seem to trivialize eating disorders in pretty cliche and bad ways. I'm not really sure what the alternative is, I mean showing kids eating disorder episodes of Intervention is probably inappropriate before high school. I'm not sure what the answer is on a pop-culture level. I'm just pretty sure this episode of Horseland isn't it.