Starving With The Stars
Winter of last year, Disney aired an episode on Shake It Up! that involved the two main characters, CeCe Jones and Rocky Blue, sneaking out to an event and meeting a model. This model commented on how cute these girls were and said, "You're adorable! I could just eat you guys up, you know, if I ate." This scene had every right to provoke former Disney star Demi Lovato. Prior to this episode, Lovato checked into rehab and had to stop filming So Random (another Disney series) due to her eating disorder. She stated that So Random also had subtle jokes regarding eating disorders and therefore, could not continue with the series (Mitovich). Regardless of suffering from an eating disorder or not, lines like these should not be vicariously thrown onto any show, especially for shows with a younger demographic of viewers as they are at a tender age and quite impressionable. Associating serious disorders such as eating disorders with humor lessens the 'seriousness' and tension, allowing viewers to believe that detrimental disorders are alright to have.