Lauren Greenfield's 'Thin'
Brittany, a subject in the film
By Jennifer Fields
Photographer Lauren Greenfield, known for documenting cultural attitudes about women and their bodies, followed four women with eating disorders at Renfrew, a residential treatment facility in Florida. Her documentary, 'Thin,' chronicles their stories and will premiere on HBO on November 14, 2006 at 9:00 pm EST. Our Q&A with her continues.
Q: What did you think about the culture of the treatment facility? There was a lot of competition there.
LG:The institution was almost a character in the film. Renfrew has the feel of a college dorm. It looks like one and functioned much like one. Eating disorder culture and behavior is very contagious, so in that environment, the disorder is magnified exponentially and there's competition and alliances. The ethos at Renfrew is all about community and I was interested in how that concept worked both for and against these women. I think I captured that in the film.
Q: Some of the women in the film don't fare so well at the end. Did you come away thinking that it is possible to recover from an eating disorder?
LG: I came away thinking that it's a tenacious illness. Care at a facility like Renfrew can cost $1,500 a day, and experts say it takes four to seven years to recover, so it's very difficult to get really good treatment for as long as a woman needs it. I hear 50 to 80 percent get better [with treatment].
It's disheartening for women and for the families [of these women] because you would think that by going to a treatment center, that they'd come out fixed. But these women will continue to struggle for a long time. And sometimes they require multiple hospitalizations.
But even with a relapse, these women can come out further along and stronger than they would have if they hadn't gone to Renfrew at all -- because at least they get some tools to [help] cope. Of course getting help early is a big key to success. Teenagers who get treatment tend to find recovery more often. Once you've been doing this for 10 and 20 years, it's hard to imagine your life any other way. But I believe there's hope for recovery and you have to hold onto that hope and be motivated.
Q: All of the women we see in the treatment center are white. What does this say about eating disorders and women of color?
LG: Traditionally, there's been a stereotype that this illness only affects white, middle-class women. I don't know if that was ever true or if it was just because of who was getting treatment. There's not great research on the issue, but I know I saw poor women, mothers, older women, Latinas and women from other countries.
I actually went back to Renfrew to do a photography book of 'Thin' because I felt like there were stories of diversity that weren't in the film. The subjects in the film are amazing but not necessarily representative of the broad spectrum of women with eating disorders. In the book, I cover women with this illness from their teens to their fifties -- and some are Puerto Rican and African American women.
Q: What do you want people to take away from your film?
LG: It's hard to meet someone who doesn't have a personal connection to this illness. I wanted people to really understand what it's like to have an eating disorder. The media covers it often, but there's a lot of misinformation. So, there's a sense -- even for people with eating disorders -- that no one really knows what it's like, not even the people closest to them. The women who have this illness are smart, articulate, successful in many ways. And yet, they're in this kind of insane prison that's really hard to understand -- but it is a mental illness that women and I think all women have a reference for. I want to get the film out to widest audience possible to raise awareness about the illness.
Photographer Lauren Greenfield is the author of Girl Culture. 'Thin' is her first film and is also a book.
Previous: Why the Need for an Eating Disorders Documentary
