Eating disorders are widely considered to be some of the most fatal mental illnesses that plague millions of Americans. Every 62 minutes, one person’s death is caused directly by an eating disorder. These serious mental illnesses are usually characterized by a meticulously restricted diet, binging and purging, exercise addiction, and very often a simultaneous mood disorder such as depression.

The public perception of eating disorders is very narrow-minded, as the media portrays them to be purely motivated by the desire to lose irrational amounts of weight. This stigma is perpetuated by the prevalence of eating disorders in fashion modeling. However, there is much more than meets the eye in anorexia. Symptoms such as insomnia, irritability, skin picking, hair loss, extreme fatigue, and more are not fully portrayed to the public. The most important symptom of eating disorders is the one that cannot be portrayed: the subconscious control of the disorder over the affected individual.

The goal of my final project is to portray the mental grasp that eating disorders take over an affected individual. Someone very close to me suffers from anorexia and will be the subject of this series. Each photograph will be taken in a way that shows more than just the physical downfall of an anorexic individual. The tone and content will reflect the mind-numbing control of each and every disorder-related thought and will strive to raise awareness that eating disorders cannot simply be cured by “eating more.”

As references for this project, I turned to photographers who have attempted to portray intangible mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. The first of which is Edward Honaker, a contemporary photographer whose surrealist portraits are meant to personify his mind during depression. He focuses on editing his photos to distort his head and place a physical property on a numb mind. The next photographer is Janelia Mould, who portrays similar ideas to Honaker. Mould’s series A Girl Called Melancholy – A Story of Depression erases the head of the subject of each photograph to show a sense of mindlessness associated with depressive disorders, a different take on the same concept as Honaker. The last photographer that I will draw inspiration from in this series is Brian Ulrich. While Ulrich does not specifically portray mental illness, his use of space and environment in his series Dark Stores, Ghostboxes, and Dead Malls works to create a sense of emptiness, loneliness, and being forgotten. This is a very common mindset for anorexia patients and I will attempt to use the surroundings of each photograph to reinforce this theme.

Kids R Us, Brian Ulrich

Edward Honaker

Janelia Mould