StoreHollyoaks Eating Disorder Storyline
In 2007, Hollyoaks tackled eating disorders in one of its storylines. Hannah Ashworth (played by Emma Rigby) was a character in the Channel 4 teenage drama and soap opera, set in Chester, Cheshire, England.
Having recently moved to the area with her family, she attended Hollyoaks Community College.
The revelation that her boyfriend, John Paul McQueen, was gay, marked the latest in a string of stressful events plaguing the teenager since moving to Hollyoaks.
Hannah’s confidence was at an all-time low, having convinced herself that it was her own repulsiveness that ‘turned’ John Paul and that she wa just not pretty enough.
Scenes showed her obsessively checking herself in the mirror, pinching the skin around her stomach and grimacing in disgust at what she perceived to be a double chin.
This was usually followed by a tearful binge eating session, which sometimes preceded self-induced vomiting.
One particularly notable episode was centred around New Year’s Eve, when Hannah was seen sitting alone at home feeling confused, miserable and rejected. She binged on enormous amounts of food to comfort herself. She then vomited the food back up.
Hannah declined into a destructive, vicious cycle of bingeing and purging as she struggled to cope with her emotions.
This is something only too familiar to many eating disorder sufferers and their friends and families. Hopefully the Hollyoaks storyline encouraged some people with eating disorders to seek help, and viewers appreciated how serious, destructive, unglamorous and deadly eating disorders really are.
Hollyoaks has a reputation for tackling sensitive and controversial storylines, and has included subjects such as male rape, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy and abortion.