Bodies so frail and thin they look like skeletons with skin draped over them.

Women losing their dreams of one day having children.

These are just a few of the awful side effects that can accompany an eating disorder.

I’m no doctor, but I’m fairly confident in saying that the media needs to step it up when covering topics as serious as these kinds of illnesses.

There are  many movies and books that have been written about body image and eating disorders. Some of them reveal the true dangers that go along with eating disorders – Lifetime does a pretty good job – while others misrepresent them and even make light of the subject.

I love “Glee” just as much as the next showtune-obsessed person, but this season a couple of episodes aired that really made me question where the producers’ heads were at.

In the episodes, one of the main girls starts worrying about her weight when her costume for a performance becomes too snug. One of the popular glee clubbers was taking in the costume and making it smaller, making the main girl think that she was quickly gaining weight when she wasn’t.

In order to lose weight, the main girl began to make herself throw up and laxatives are found in her bag.

Instead of concern, her fellow glee clubbers show their sick ‘friend’ disgust and anger when she causes them to lose a singing competition because she passed out on stage.

After they blamed her for the loss at the competition, she actually apologized.

She apologized like it was wrong to be sick.

I know just because somebody tries making themselves throw up to lose weight once, doesn’t automatically mean they have bulimia. There are requirements that must be met in order to be diagnosed with that.

I get that.

Even if she didn’t actually have an eating disorder though (which would not have come and gone within the span of an episode) she was still struggling with body image. That’s not a funny matter either. I didn’t stick around for anymore episodes to see if producers went into more detail or followed up on her condition, but even so, what I saw was handled poorly. .

Eating disorders aren’t just someone beating themselves up over how they look. Anorexia, bulimia and all of the other eating disorders are real disorders.

It saddens me to see a show that is so influential make light of them.