When I was in sixth grade, our science class began its health unit, which was all about the changing body. This portion of the curriculum, naturally, came with plenty of giggles and whispers. Oh, the days when something as simple as the words “breasts” and “penis” were enough to sustain an entire day’s worth of joy, when the numbers 80085 viewed on an upside-down calculator could illicit chuckles from the corner of a room. The only thing better was when, one Friday, our teacher rolled out the TV — sitting atop that old, rickety cart on wheels — to show us a little made-for-television movie called, “For the Love of Nancy.”
Our teacher explained that the film would serve as our introduction to a unit on eating disorders. In 2006, I felt I was already deeply familiar with the concept. Anorexia and bulimia were in nearly every tabloid headline, splashed across the supermarket checkout aisles. Two years after Mary-Kate Olsen checked herself into rehab for anorexia nervosa, eating disorders turned a hypercritical eye toward every young starlet. “Extreme diets: How Lindsay and Nicole got so skinny — but have they gone too far?” the honorable Us Weekly wondered. I assumed that “For the Love of Nancy” wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. But when the film got started, I quickly began to understand that there was much more to these disorders than my 12-year-old brain could comprehend from a sensational gossip story. They were complicated, secretive, compulsive and potentially deadly, and the film’s gripping melodrama was a stark contrast to any glamorous tabloid portrayal.
