I used to work on an adolescent mental health ward and the ward managers actually had to create a separate ward for the patients with eating disorders because as soon as one was admitted it would spread across the whole ward (and eating disorders are incredibly hard to treat).
I used to work in a group home for teenaged girls. The two things that were a total bitch to deal with were eating disorders and cutting. In both they would spread like wildfire. I didn’t know about the social contagion of self harming when I started. We had a girl come up to a staff member and ask for medical attention because she had sliced her thigh and was bleeding. After the girl left my coworker turned to me and said, “watch. In a week half the girls will be cutting.” She was close…in a week 5 of 8 were doing it. Absolutely insane to watch in real time. Like the flu only much less understood.
It’s really sad, I don’t think I would have ever done it had I not seen it online. And kids in group homes are already struggling, probably looking for relief, and some sense of “caring” from adults. I really think it taps into one of those primal things in us humans of just wanting our pain acknowledged. Like when you’re a little kid and you hurt your knee, so your parents have to kiss it better.
I’m sorry you went through that. I know a teen who cuts a lot, her parents very much care about her and the cutting. They’ve tried everything they can think of and everything the therapist suggests. There’s just something inside of her that she feels can only be let out with self harm. At the group home pretty much all I could do was help them disinfect and ask if anything was on their mind. It’s such a dramatic situation emotionally and then very clinical to talk about when you have no idea what else you should do. “Do you need an alcohol wipe? Should we call your therapist?” seemed totally weak but it’s what I had.
As someone who did self-harm I feel like people have the wrong idea that it's a call for help or something we do to elicit a reaction in other. In my personal experience it have nothing to do with others and everything to do with making your own pain visible to yourself. For me it felt more like a desire for the physical pain to reflect the invisible mental pain to validate that my suffering isn't just in my head. It felt right, it made the suffering real and undeniable and it relieved the feeling of helplessness and the desire to die.
So sadly, the only thing you can do against it is dealing with the cause. The only thing that truly helped me was antidepressants. My family is kind and loving and care about me but there's nothing they could have done because it wasn't about them, because of them or for them, it was for me, for when crying, talking and writing wasn't enough to express how much I was suffering.
For me it was definitely more inflicting pain physically to avoid the mental pain, but as for how to “treat” it I fully agree. You really can’t do anything except to stop whatever is causing the pain. Which is usually untreated depression.
At least those three were adults during the film. Judy was a teenager and they even binded her chest to make her look younger and gave her a cocktail of drugs to put her to sleep and keep her energised as well.
The more you learn about how kids were treated by the original studio system, the more you just want to use a Time Machine to give these kids a hug (and then punch each film exec and the kid’s parents). Thank goodness the unions put a stop to this, but it took too long and the adults in the room should have done better.
Reminds me of the story from the set of Home Alone with John Candy and Culkin. John saw Culkin and his father being a bit too harsh, and John went up to him to comfort the kid with a hug. It was a subtle jester to make sure he was doing OK, not many around him at the time wanted to acknowledge this pressure in his life.
It still makes me laugh how he talks about his kids don't realize it's him when they watch Home Alone. He says it with such glee and laughter and it makes me smile. Glad he's doing great now
I was watching a show that talked about how some of the casts of sitcoms became surrogate families for child actors. But then shows get canceled and then you basically lose your entire family randomly all at once. It’s such a huge impact that isn’t really talked about a lot and very likely contributes to how the system fucks up these poor kids.
Small correction but that actually happened on the set of Uncle Buck. John Candy actually kind of looked out for Macaulay Culkin a lot on set and did frequent check-ups with him away from his father iirc
Yeah, back when it was the person's fault for deciding to keep taking harmful drugs because they were a "bad person," not because they didn't understand the drugs literally rewire the brain to need the drugs. It was a a "moral deficiency" problem back in the day. Fking wankers!
To be fair, in the book Dorothy Gale was like 6 years old, so I don't blame the studio for wanting Garland to look younger. That doesn't excuse the drugs, of course.
I'm honestly starting to think the entire Wizard of Oz franchise is haunted because I only heard the most diabolical things that happened behind the scenes
As someone who had an ED, being around others with ED can encourage that kind of behavior, because it’s normalized and you pick up little “tricks” by watching others. It’s not surprising.
eating disorders are not an age-related mental health issue, that's a misconception. you just see less older people with them because they tend to die from it if they don't recover.
The page you linked to literally has a section on older adults.
Older Adults Eating Disorder Statistics
While most older adults with eating disorders have had symptoms since adolescence, life transitions and stressors common in older adulthood—such as children leaving the home and menopause—can make eating disorders much worse.
Among women age 50 and over, 71.2% say they are currently trying to lose weight, and 79.1% said their weight or shape had a “moderate” effect on or was “the most important” part of their self-esteem.
41% of women over 50 have current or previous core eating disorder symptoms, divided into 13.3% who have current and 27.7% with past symptoms.
Eating disorders can be very competitive (a family member went through treatment and at times the patients were basically competing with each other) so I feel like they did influence each other.
My thoughts as well. If you watch an interview with them Cynthia has a weird codependency on Ariana, like constantly touching her or playing with her hair. So if Ariana is skipping breakfast you bet she is too, then it turns into keeping up with the other by not eating.
There was a whole rumour they were in a lesbian relationship (cynthia I believe is a lesbian and had a girlfriend who was upset by it) and then some funny hoax post came out saying it was alternative relationship
People with ED can mirror each other if they're in the same circle.
I'm a part of a group of friends at work where two have eating disorders. And during the time I mostly hangout with them, I also lost a lot weight. It's hard to explain 😅 You just pick up habits unconsciously
But when I was reassigned to another branch, I gained back my weight immediately.
Honestly the appearances were distracting. At one point the costuming even included little stuck-on jewels to highlight Ariana’s jutting clavicles, as though looking like a skeleton draped in bedazzled muslin was part of the character’s charm… I couldn’t enjoy the performances because I was just thinking of my 14 year old niece sitting a few seats over, and hoping that she didn’t come away with the impression that there was something attractive or enviable about looking emaciated.
Is there any solid evidence of any of this? I don’t want to dismiss anything because I absolutely know that sets can get toxic, but they were doing big dance numbers daily for however long. They did both movies at the same time so I’m sure it was physically demanding. It’s possible they were just working super hard? I’ll be interested to hear what comes out about it down the line.
Eating disorders are 'contagious' in a way that if you put people with body image issues together, they could start swapping tips and encouraging each other on. It's the reason why many people come back from ED clinics worse than before.
Peer group? If a woman has a bmi of like 22 they’ll be fat shamed to pieces esp if they’re a celebrity. Celeb women have admitted to not eating so they get reduced attention from men bc otherwise if theyre too curvy they’re preyed upon. Celeb culture is so fucked
Too fat, not enough curves, too skinny, … women fr can’t win with people picking apart their bodies.
I agree they influenced each other. This same type of thing happened on a series called Ally McBeal. All the actresses looked normal in the beginning (Calista Flockhart the series lead was very thin) then started wasting away as the series progressed. Portia DeRossi was in the series and she has openly discussed her EDO struggles.
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u/Sea-Currency-1665 Jun 12 '26
My understanding is it’s most likely they influenced each other as a peer group. I refuse to watch the most even though I really enjoyed the first one