Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.

Don’t watch this episode if you have a weak stomach.

Episode 2.9 “Mirror In The Bathroom”

(Dir by Paul Fox, originally aired on July 18th, 2003)

This is the one where Toby decides that the only way to get people to notice him in school is to join the wrestling team.  However, when he discovers that he and Sean are in the same weight class (and there’s no way that Toby could ever beat Sean), Toby decides to lose a lot of weight in a very short amount of time.

Yep, this is the episode were Toby starts taking laxatives and throwing up his lunch.

Ugh.  Yes, I know that eating disorders are serious.  It’s nice that Degrassi did an episode about a guy doing something stupid instead of a girl.  If there’s anything I get sick of, it’s the assumption that some people have that any woman who isn’t fat must have an eating disorder.  Seriously, you can’t win.  If you gain weight, you endanger your health.  If you don’t gain weight, everyone assumes you’re throwing up everything you eat.  This episode featured a guy struggling with body issues and I appreciated the change of pace.

That said …. ugh!  Toby using laxatives!  Ugh, ugh, ugh!

While Toby is losing weight, Terri is using her weight to get rich as a plus-sized model.  Good for her, I guess.  Terri’s kind of a boring character so, for now, it’s difficult to really care about her storylines.  In season 3, she’ll start dating Rick Murray and everything will change.  But we’ve still got a while to go.

Anyway, as always happens when someone gets an eating disorder, Toby ends up fainting in front of the entire school.  He’s off the wrestling team but at least he’ll never take another laxative.

Seriously, ugh!