Despite eating disorders being a common experience for young people in the LGBT community, they are rarely talked about. Heartstopper, a popular LGBT teen drama, aims to address this issue in its latest season by highlighting one of its character’s struggles with an eating disorder. Sharan, a Heartstopper fan who identifies as pansexual, has had personal experience with this issue. They were outed as pansexual by a classmate during a school day in Year 9 and became a target of bullying as a result. Sharan began skipping lunch and spending lunch money on hobbies as a way to avoid the school canteen. The pattern went unnoticed for months until a teacher asked them about their anxieties around eating.
Sharan’s experience is not unique. A survey of nearly 3,000 teens across 375 UK schools by the charity Just Like Us found that lesbian and bisexual teens were over twice as likely to have experienced an eating disorder compared to straight girls. This finds support in Beat’s suggestion that people often view eating disorders as only affecting young middle-class heterosexual white girls, which can make people like Sharan, who is of Asian heritage, feel invisible. Matthew Todd, the former editor of gay magazine Attitude, adds that the lack of support in schools, where coming out can still be challenging, can also contribute to the higher rates of eating disorders in the LGBT community.
James, a gay man, first developed anorexia at the age of 14 and struggled to find treatment due to the lack of clinics that were able to treat his disorder or specialists who could understand his gender. In Wales in the 1990s, therapists advised him that accepting his homosexuality might resolve his eating disorder. He recovered from anorexia after eight years but still developed bulimia soon after. James believes that Heartstopper’s portrayal of a residential clinic storyline could encourage those in the LGBT community who are struggling with eating disorders to seek help.
Heartstopper’s author, Alice Oseman, played a significant role in the development of the Netflix show and wanted to demonstrate that the road to recovery is often unclear but can be achieved with the right support system. Sharan found support through Mosaic LGBT+, a youth group that allowed them to talk openly, and whose mentors demonstrated real care. They note that Heartstopper has become a catalyst for significant discussion among their friends, who feel inspired by the show’s portrayal of a positive storyline of someone succeeding in seeking help and getting better. It provides them with hope and a belief that they can also succeed in overcoming their struggles
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