may be terminating soon (* ugly hollers *), but actress, Troian Bellisario( who plays Spencer Hastings ), already has a new programme in the works that may be her most impactful yet.
Bellisario shot thefilmwhich she aimed and wrote based on her personal experience with the anorexia, reports People magazine. The movies plot will follow twins( played by Bellisario and Tom Felton, of notoriety) who are familiar with a misfortune in their last year of high school that pushes them apart.
Bellisario discussed the film and mental illness in detail withmagazine.
She shared,
One of the things I truly wanted the film to explore was that once you have this relationship, once you have this mental illness or this disease, it never truly goes away.
Your synapses are wired in such a way that you will always feel this compulsion, but as you grow older and create a healthier life and run through lots of therapy, you tend to feel more empowered when it comes to attaining these choices.
The actress has long been open about her battle with anorexia, and first talked about it in an interview with magazine.
She described her experience, mentioning,
I started self-harming when I was a junior. I would withhold food or withhold going out with my friends, based on how well I did that day in school.
I would create this bizarre system of checks and balances to create order in my world.
Bellisariolaterfilmed an awareness PSAduring the2 016 Hillary Clinton campaign.
The filmis necessary for different cultures simply because we dont talking here eating disordersas often as we should.
According to the National Eating Disorders Association( NEDA ), 20 million women and 10 million boys experience an eating disorder in their lifetimes. Half a million teens are also affected by them.
While “theres been” movies about eating disorder in the past, the topic has not been part of national conversationin this way.
Growing up, I specifically recollect learning everything there was to know about eating disorder from Lifetime movies, like( 1994 ), and( 1996 ).
Since the 90 s, yes, “theres been” other cinemas that grapple with the subject, like the 2013 film, , starring Elle Fanning. Still, a check on Google search trends demonstrates public interest in looking up words like eating disorder, anorexia, and bulimia has decreased since 2004.
There is still little understandingabout eating disorders.
Other situations are classified as eating disorder not otherwise specified or EDNOS. An instance isPica, the behavior ofconstantly feeing things not intend for consumption, like plastic or clay. Ruminationis another, which happens when people bring back up meat they already digested to eat again.
Chewing and spewing( c/ s) is another condition not classified as an eating disorder, but involves a person munching foodand spewing it out instead of swallowing it.
Its important to talk about and understand these disorders, so we can identify them easier, and erase the stigmas associated with them.
Wedont exhaustively understandthepeople who suffer from these disorders.
Merriam-Webster definesanorexia as,
A serious physical and psychological illness in which an abnormal fear of being fat have contributed to very poor feeing habits and dangerous weight loss.
However, this definition is incomplete, according toexperts and survivors.
Psychology Today debunked the myth about eating disorder being all about wanting to be thin, in anarticle that discusses how the desire forcontrol is the fueling factor.
Troian Bellisario likewise shared in magazine that many people misunderstood this about her mental illness.
She mentioned,
I acquired there were so many people who thought that it was about losing weight or being skinny, and I couldnt quite get them to understand that it was about control on a very, very literal level.
A film like, created by one of the biggesttelevision suns in the digital age, whois a survivor, will hopefully push eating disorder back into trending dialogue and empower more people to form a full understanding.
