Eating Disorders "A monster hiding in plain sight" - Theatre Director Interview

Helen Clarke

Production image. Credit: Tracey Gibbs

Amy Hailwood is a Theatre Director, Applied Theatre Facilitator and Artistic Director for Ordinary Glory - a Greater Manchester based theatre company that makes theatre for social change.

Her last show Joy Unspeakable tells the true stories of four different women who recovered from an eating disorder, in their own words. "Like the complexities of the stories staged, it resists a reduction to one simple message or interpretation. I hope that this richness is part of the enjoyment of it as a piece of theatre."

Here is our interview with her...

What is your message and who needs to hear it?

The activist part of me is very clear that my message is that recovery is possible and there is hope and a way out of the horrific prison that people experiencing disordered eating can feel trapped in.

It's a message for everyone - for those experiencing disordered eating first hand, but also for their friends and families who may also feel very disempowered and worried, not knowing how best to help the person they love.

It's also a message that wider society can benefit from hearing, to help increase understanding and empathy for a mental health condition that is particularly silencing and surrounded by unhelpful myths - for example, the myth that you have to be underweight in order to have an eating disorder.

Credit: Tracey Gibbs

Why is now the right time for this play?

Ordinary Glory has been working towards this production for over four years, motivated by a powerful sense of the importance of opening up the conversation around disordered eating, which remains poorly represented in culture.

However, in that time, which of course intersects with the Covid-19 pandemic, referrals to eating disorder services have increased exponentially. 

Research from leading eating disorder charity BEAT estimates that 1.25 million people in the UK have an eating disorder, locally, Wigan & Bolton’s Young People’s Community Eating Disorder Service has experienced a significant referral increase of 496% between 2019 and 2022.

The cultural conversation around mental health in our society has moved forward in important ways over the past ten years or so, but whilst this has arguably had a really positive effect on the destigmatisation of mental health issues like anxiety and depression, disordered eating feels a little left behind in comparison.

Now that society is more familiar with talking openly about our mental health, we want to shift the focus onto disordered eating - a monster very much hiding in plain sight in our culture.

What's important about the Greater Manchester locations chosen to showcase the play?

Taking the show to various parts of GM means we are able to create the opportunity for people whose daily cultural reference points are much more local, to see the show, not just those audiences who might regularly attend theatre in the city centre.

It has also meant we have been able to do locally focused youth and community engagement, offering pre and post show workshops and panel events, as well as free tickets to young people and those on lower incomes in order to reduce the practical barriers to going to the theatre. 

What are the signs that people should look out for, with themselves or others?

The SCOFF questionnaire is a tool designed to screen potential eating disorders rather than diagnose but if you can relate to any of the questions, we would encourage you to check in with your GP or a health professional for some support.

• Do you make yourself sick because you feel uncomfortably full?

• Do you worry that you have lost control over how much you ate?

• Have you recently lost more than one stone in weight? 

• Do you believe yourself to be fat when others say you are too thin?

• Would you say that food dominates your life?

Is there more of a stigma with overeating than with undereating?

This is an interesting question but one that it isn't easy to give a general answer for; on the one hand, living as we do in a broadly pro-diet, fat-shaming culture, the associations of perceived greed that might go along with overeating could appear more stigmatised than behaviours of restriction that are broadly praised, often unthinkingly.

Think how easily people fall into the language of 'good' and 'bad' food or 'being naughty' in everyday parlance, to delineate between types or amounts of food.

On the other hand, the rise of the body positivity movement has seen some positive shifts in norms around the female body in culture, although we still have a long way to go.

For people whose undereating makes them very visibly underweight or whose restrictive relationship with food makes it extremely difficult to take part in everyday social interactions, many of which are based around food, the stigma of undereating can also feel and be enormous.

Ultimately, all types of disordered relationships with food experience problematic stigmatisations that prevent people getting the help they need.

Amy Hailwood. Credit: Ordinary Glory

What role does the media play, especially with women who grew up with so much body shaming in the 90s/00s?

The media clearly has a powerful impact on shaping the culture in which we live, and whether through the lads mags and body shaming of the 90's/00's or the contemporary pressure to glow like an Insta influencer, women (and men) are constantly bombarded with messages that in essence say - you are not good enough as you are, be like this (insert new definition of perfect).

That said, it's easy to demonise "The Media" at large, parts of which can also have a great power for good - the body positivity movement is a case in point.

On top of this, the causes of eating disorders are often multiple, with complex elements interacting and to some extent different for each individual, so while a toxic media culture doesn't help, it's not the only contributing factor.

The future isn't something hidden in a corner. The future is something we build in the present, as Paolo Freire said.