Battling Anorexia

Three teenagers, two girls and a boy, talk openly about their battle with anorexia, and staff at a school and a psychiatric unit talk about how sufferers can be supported.

Often over-simplified as an aspiration to look like models and celebrities, anorexia is a complex mental illness with a range of causes. Moreover, anorexia is increasingly affecting teenage boys as well as young girls.

Here, teenagers Lindsay, Rob and Constance describe their downward spiral into anorexia, which resulted in each of them being hospitalised. Additionally, they relate the catastrophic affect that this isolating illness had on their physical health, their mental health, and their relationships with friends and family.

The programme also visits a psychiatric unit which deals specifically with adolescents with mental health problems, and a school which helped to support a student in their recovery from anorexia.