Dana is only eight years old, but she became so dangerously underweight – at one time weighing just three stones – due to anorexia, that her family felt they had no choice but to admit her to a clinic for a three month program of treatment where specialists in this dangerous disorder could help her to overcome her illness.

Throughout the film, we saw footage of Dana talking to one of the film crew about her experiences, and I was very touched by her honesty and how beautiful this little girl is. Her doe eyes and quiet demeanour belie her troubled mind and other than being skinny, you wouldn’t think she was any different to a million other little girls, but she has a will of iron and a self-determination that speaks volumes about her intelligence and tenacity.

It’s a startling fact that in the last two years, admissions to hospital for the treatment of anorexia in girls under ten years old has increased by 50%, a trend that ably demonstrates the fact that the nation’s children are becoming obsessed with their body image at a frighteningly young age.

The film began with Dana already at the Rhodes Farm clinic which has ‘a tough regime’ and which Dana initially described as a ‘torture chamber’. It’s run by Dr Dee Dawson who’s had more than twenty years experience of treating the ever growing number of young people with this illness. Dana was the youngest girl at the clinic and shared the daily routine with twenty teenage girls.

There were times when she looked lost among so many older girls, but many of them went out of their way to include Dana in activities such as singing and dancing, so there were other times when she seemed to be really enjoying herself. One of the ironies of this film were that some of the older girls expressed their disbelief that a girl so young should be squandering her childhood on worries about calories and weight gain; they clearly couldn’t see that their own families will doubtless feel the same way about them.

Sandra, Dana’s mother, explained that prior to her illness, Dana had been an average child; happy, active and sporty, but her obsession with calories and weight loss happened almost overnight and seemingly out of nowhere. Within weeks of turning eight, Dana’s weight had dropped so drastically that Sandra had her admitted to the paediatric ward of their local hospital, but far from making Dana better, it made matters worse. The little girl refused to eat at all and she even refused water, going to extreme lengths to stop even the IV glucose fluids from going into her body.

Sandra very openly talked about Dana’s illness and the terrible struggle that she’d faced as she watched her child literally fading away. Sandra talked about how mealtimes were ‘a battle of wills’ which inevitably, due to the insidious and devious nature of anorexia, Sandra lost every time. Dana always found some way to burn off the calories that she ate, and then some.

Dana’s father, Jamal, recalled that the most frightening thing for him at that time was when his daughter told him she wanted to die and would rather do so than eat. Her older sister Yasmine recalled how during that hospital stay, Dana became so ill that her organs were beginning to shut down and the family were warned that Dana may not live. Finally, after nineteen days in hospital, and with no progress, Dana was taken home.

Her mum explained that Dana had promised to eat if she was allowed home, and she did, but only around 175 calories per day which she counterbalanced the effects of with obsessive exercise. However, Dr Dawson explained that at the clinic, eating is ‘non-negotiable’ and all the time she was there, Dana had to consume 2400 calories per day in order to become a healthy weight again. The clinic staff watched the children as they ate and were steely in their determination that each child stays at the table until they’ve eaten their meals, and from this there is no deviation, no exception.

Some of the girls ate readily while others looked genuinely distressed with every mouthful. However, anorexia isn’t about food itself, it’s about using food as a weapon against oneself and is a form of self-harming rather than the traditional belief that it’s about wanting to be thin. It’s a cry for help and it’s a means of having some control over an aspect of their lives that anorexics believe nobody can take away from them. Refusing food, hiding food and tricking others into believing they are eating are all common ways in which an anorexic can keep that control.

One of the very disturbing aspects of the film was that many of the girls – Dana included – talked about how a voice inside their heads basically became the boss of them, and Sandra described an event where Dana ate a strawberry only to then not touch another morsel of food. When Sandra asked her why, Dana replied that the voice in her head had told her that she’d done a ‘very naughty’ thing in eating the fruit.

At the clinic, weight gain is rewarded with special treats and ultimately with a return home, and several of the girls acknowledged that because they know that, they are likely to gain the weight they’re supposed to while at the clinic but all the time they’re secretly planning how to lose it again once they return home. For Dana, one of the special rewards for her weight gain was a day out with her parents to a safari park but she had to pass a ‘test’ while there. She had to prove that she could and would eat a high calorie meal outside the environs of the clinic, so after some lovely footage of Dana having a wonderful time, the family went to a restaurant.

Dana had fish and chips followed by a massive piece of chocolate cake with two scoops of ice cream which gave mum Sandra a dilemma; in the clinic, ‘every crumb counts’ and Dana had literally scraped her fish and chips plate clean but as the pudding was so large, Dana was clearly full – and to be fair, many adults with normal eating habits would’ve struggled to finish it – but Sandra had to figure out how best to resolve it.

She didn’t want to go against the clinic’s regime and advice but on the other hand, she didn’t want Dana to be so full she felt ill, so she and Dana tried to justify the reasons why she could be allowed to leave some of the cake. However, fearing the response of clinic staff to hearing that she’d left some food, Dana decided to eat it all. Ultimately, what should have been a lovely treat became an ordeal; she struggled so hard to get it all down and looked like she might be sick at any moment. The joy of the trip and the pleasure of watching Dana eat so well became a fretful, worrying ordeal for Sandra too and in the end, she told Dana to stop eating it but the fear was evident in Dana’s face that the clinic would think she’d failed the eating-out test.

On her next trip out, Sandra had to assume full control over what Dana ate and she knew that her daughter must have 750 calories at lunch time, so armed with her book of calorific values, Sandra worked out what lunch Dana should have. There was a small battle of wills over a cake though; Sandra was determined to not question the clinic’s advice, acknowledging that they know what they’re doing far better than she does, but Dana didn’t want the chocolate cake. Eventually, a truce was formed in that Dana had a strawberry cake instead. However, it did show that Dana wasn’t yet willing to entirely relinquish her control over food and that she wanted to test out the waters with her mum to see how far she could go in making choices about what she ate.

Soon however, Dana reached her target weight and so was allowed home. When an emotional Sandra and Jamal went to collect her, Sandra said that she was immensely relieved that what she hoped had been a ‘blip’ in Dana’s childhood was now over and this would be an end to it.

After three weeks at home, Dana was maintaining her target weight and hopes were high that she would continue to recover without incident. Her family were still trying to understand what had caused Dana’s anorexia in the first place and Sandra believed that it was a combination of watching weight loss programmes on TV and the fact that Dana’s older sister Yasmine was forever on diets of one kind or another. Dana meanwhile was still adamant that she didn’t know why she’d become anorexic.

As Sandra said in the closing minutes, her anxieties must not now affect Dana because she’s just a child and still Sandra’s fervent hope is that the anorexia has gone for good and will never return. However, the fact is that one third of all children with anorexia do relapse, so time will tell if this is the case for Dana. I sincerely hope it’s not.

This was a very moving film that portrayed a caring, open, loving family, full of strong characters and Dana, like her mum, is a determined lady so I really hope her determination is to remain well and not to just wait until the dust has settled and all eyes aren’t on her to resume her battle with food.

It was also a very enlightening programme and one that counterbalances the vast media coverage about obesity and ‘healthy eating’. For Dana and other anorexics, what is purported to be a healthy way of eating and living – that is, a low fat, low calorie, self-denying diets and a thin body – is far from healthy. It also highlighted the fact that seemingly innocuous programmes and every day topics can trigger this devastating illness in young people and it’s a growing problem.