That's uh, an eating disorder. People have them sometimes.

I didn't know anybody still watched Lifetime (kidding). That sounds pretty typical. The best thing about Lifetime television is the Lifetime Movie Title Generator. At least it makes you laugh sometimes.

I skipped right over that channel when I saw that movie was on.

Laina, eating ice cream when you're sad isn't an eating disorder. That's called "home alone on a Saturday night watching re-runs of Judge Judy" in my house, and I almost look forward to it. A movie on "television for women" shouldn't be pathologizing comfort eating or making out plus-sized women to be overly emotional eating machines.

Not to mention that females, as a rule, turn to Ben and Jerrys for emotional support regardless of their weight.

As a rule, I stay away from Lifetime movies unless I want to spend the day being an Angry Feminist (TM).

I mean, compulsive over-eating. The way the OP described it was someone going all bonkers on their freezer to irrationally and potentially compulsively over-eating a bunch of ice cream. I mean, it could be emotional eating, or it could be compulsive over-eating. I guess my mental image was more intense than was actually portrayed because of the language used in the original post (I haven't actually seen the movie). I just wanted to point out that maybe the chick in the movie was supposed to be a compulsive over-eater (in the disordered sense, which is not to say that all non-skinnies are disordered).

It's generally a good idea to stay away from Lifetime movies. I only watch the channel for Golden Girls reruns.

Laina,
Although the movie might be addressing eating disorders, I've found that many people make the assumption that fat people continuously eat. Unless the movie deliberately tries to make it known that the main character isn't just an overweight person, but a person with an eating disorder, then chances are they're just reinforcing the same old idea of a fat person who can't stop eating ice cream.

I just want to clarify one little bit about the movie since I wrote the post pretty quickly, and it's come up on the thread. That said, it did not even remotely address eating disorders. I highly doubt the film makers intended the character to have an eating disorder, since their conceptualization of plus sized women was inherently narrow, hence my annoyance. The plot was about people accepting her for who she is, and not seeing her size, and all those warm fuzzies. The scenes where she went binge eating were random and totally over the top. It's like the producer stuck the scenes in with the rest of the plot specifically to make plus sized women look like emotional over-eaters. More likely, that's what film makers assume the truth is, which is depressing/frustrating/annoying, etc. The whole thing was poorly done, but it is LT after all. Sigh.

Didn't you know that the only reason women are ever fat is because we're emotional pigs who eat whenever our hormones overwhelm us?

On one hand, I've seen many a woman, and many a man, and many a person in general want some damn chocolate at the end of a rough day. And to say, just because you're a beautiful fat person, we can't show you eating, is dumb. (Anyone remember the video to "Listen Up" by The Gossip? I was watching it with one of my friends and when Beth Ditto ate that pizza she was all like "Should she really be doing that?" and I said "Are you kidding me? She's a total revolutionary! This is fucking awesome!")

On the other hand, I'm offended that they'd structure the whole damn movie to suggest she did have an unhealthy attitude towards food (Food will not solve your problems. Booze, gambling, drugs, and your obsession with miniature porcelain cats won't, either.) and then refuse to address it.