The celebrity trend for size zero has been criticised worldwide for encouraging women to starve in secret.This film explores the impact the trend is having on real people living real lives.From Kellie who is striving dangerously to achieve the skinny look, to Victoria who feels that her natural size zero frame is a poisoned chalice, this film exposes the contradictions surrounding women's
Fearne Cotton examines the ongoing trend for super-slim women and immerses herself in the worrying world of pro-ana websites who encourage anorexia and starvation as a life choice.As Fearne explores the diet and exercise regime of a pro-ana, shell try some of the extreme regimes that they endorse and meet other girls whove embraced the same lifestyle. She will explore the seductive nature
Dana is eight years old and anorexic. Cutting Edge follows Dana as she embarks on an intensive 12-week programme at a specialist clinic, to examine why younger and younger children are developing eating disorders.
Provocative documentary following the doctors who can now interrupt, and even reverse, the process of death. Filmed over six months in the country's leading brain injury unit (Addenbooke's Hospital, Cambridge), it follows the journey of a man who, by only moving his eyes, is eventually asked if he wants to live or die. Two other families are also plunged into the most ethically difficult deci
Stephen Fry presents this documentary exploring the disease of manic depression; a little understood but potentially devastating condition affecting an estimated two percent of the population.Stephen embarks on an emotional journey to meet fellow sufferers, and discuss the literal highs and lows of being bi-polar.Celebrities such as Carrie Fisher and Richard Dreyfuss invite the comedian in
This documentary follows a small number of British people with an incurable genetic disease called Prader-Willi syndrome.Prader–Willi syndrome is a rare genetic disorder in which seven genes (or some subset thereof) on chromosome 15 (q 11-13) are deleted or unexpressed (chromosome 15q partial deletion) on the paternal chromosome.It was first described in 1956 by Andrea Prader (1919-2001),
In a frank and personal documentary, author Sir Terry Pratchett considers how he might choose to end his life. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2008, Terry wants to know whether he might be able to end his life before his disease takes over.Travelling to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland, Terry witnesses first hand the procedures set out for assisted death, and confronts the point at which he wo
This documentary tells the fascinating and poignant story of the closure of Britain’s mental asylums. In the post-war period, 150,000 people were hidden away in 120 of these vast Victorian institutions all across the country.Today, most mental patients, or service users as they are now called, live out in the community and the asylums have all but disappeared. Through powerful testimonies from
What is it like to have God like surgical powers, yet to struggle against your own humanity? What is it like to try and save a life, and yet to fail? This film follows brain surgeon Henry Marsh as he openly confronts the dilemmas of the doctor patient relationship on his latest mission to Ukraine.Henry is one of London’s foremost brain surgeons, but despite being a pioneer in his field he stills