Will Oprah Winfrey's "Inside Rehab" Fuel Thinspiration?

by Wendy L. Sheppard, MSW
(EatingDisorders411.com)

The Oprah Winfrey Network (aka OWN) is in the process of auditioning people with eating disorders ... yes, I said ,i>auditioning ... to appear on a reality TV series called Inside Rehab. The "winners" of the auditions will enter an eating disorder treatment center, where they will be followed by cameras throughout their stay.

Please visit this facebook page for more information and join the cause!

The treatment center where the patients will go is Shadows of Hope. You can contact them by calling 1-800-588-HOPE and expressing your disgust at their exploitation of people with eating disorders. Their physical address is 402-A Mulberry Street, Buffalo Gap, TX 79508.

Inside Rehab is being produced by Tijuana Entertainment. The creators of "Obsessed," Troy Searer and John Foy are co-creating this exploitative eating disorder "treatment" series for Oprah Winfrey. Please contact them and communicate your disgust.

One of the publicized goals of the show is to have viewers vote for their favorite "patient." What do you think that's going to dissolve into? I'm reasonably sure the creators think people will vote for the person who is most "devoted" to her recovery. But we all know that villains typically prevail in reality tvland. So why should this be any different?

The Chief Creative Officer for Inside Rehab is Oprah's very own Lisa Erspamer. Apparently she was hired as the CCO for OWN by Harpo because she is a 15yr vet of Harpo Productions and she can "inject ... Oprah's DNA" into OWN's productions, which would include Inside Rehab. So while Oprah may try to deny involvement, knowledge, etc. for this exploitation (like Oprah doesn't approve absolutely everything that happens with her name attached?!?), it certainly sounds like her pulse and DNA is all over this.

Unfortunately, what will most likely end up happening is this will fuel the Thinspiration movement - those people who encourage eating disordered behaviors (previously known as the pro-ana movement). Members of these websites share photos of thin people to inspire themselves and others to look like the photos. They trade tips on how to be anorexic or how to be bulimic. They trade weight loss tips that are not healthy. While the community does provide support and understanding because people who enter the community do feel truly understood and they don´t feel judged, the support can be dangerous.

While it is true that some people visit pro-ana websites and decide they would rather seek treatment, this is not the norm. Many people who look for thinspiration are looking to become better at their eating disorder. They are not yet reading for eating disorder treatment centers; they are not yet ready for recovery. Yet they seek out as much information as possible related to eating disorders. So it is natural that people who are deep in their eating disorders would gravitate to a show about eating disorders.

is a show about eating disorder treatment really going to help people? Unfortunately, what many people who have never actually been a patient in an eating disorder treatment facility do not understand is there is a spirit of thinspiration that pervades treatment centers. Especially for those people who are entering treatment for the first time, most of the time treatment does not help with the eating disorder ? at least not in the long term it doesn´t. And many times it hurts the eating disorder.

Why does this phenomena occur? Because lots of times, people who enter eating disorder treatment don´t want to be there in the first place, or they are there for the wrong reasons. They have been sent there by their parents, by a doctor, by a therapist or by some other concerned person or institution. In this case, they have auditioned for the role of "patient." They will get their 15min of fame.

As a result, the mindset is not to get better; it is to get worse. So girls and young women gather together, watch each other like hawks, conspire to get around the system, trade stories and compete with each other. They come out knowing how to be better at their eating disorder than they were when they went into treatment. They get better at hiding their symptoms when they get out of treatment. And most of the time their eating disorder spirals downward ? quickly.

The concern with shows like Inside Rehab is that showing the depths of inpatient eating disorder treatment centers will inspire not only the patients on the show, but also viewers who already have an eating disorder to seek out more information to get better at their eating disorder. I have grave concern that young women who already have eating disorders will look at the people in treatment and think they (the viewers) are not sick enough. That can lead to justification for what they are doing. Eating disorders kill people, and anorexia statistics prove it. Inspiring young women to get better at their eating disorders will not help stop the devastation that eating disorders have on people´s lives.

It is probably true that a show like Inside Rehab will help raise eating disorder awareness and some people will get help as a result. But no one can say what percentage of people will be helped as opposed to what percentage will be harmed. It is my belief that more people will be harmed than helped. And so the question, is inspiring Thinspiration in a large segment of the eating disordered population really a worthy goal, even if the program could help a small segment of the eating disorder population?

I think not.

What do you think? Use the comments section below to tell me what you think....