No Thinspiration

The struggle for food has long been a drama for millions of impoverished Brazilians.

But these days the nation is transfixed by another sort of starvation: anorexia among the successful and well off.

The deaths of four young women in the last two months from anorexia - a disorder characterised by an abnormal fear of becoming obese, an aversion to food and severe weight loss - have been splashed across the front pages of newspapers. The subject has become a morbid fascination for Brazilians and a theme of a popular soap opera. It’s also touched off a debate within the fashion industry that has long presented the rail-thin model as the paragon of female beauty.

The most recent victim was Beatriz Cristina Ferraz Lopes Bastos, 23, whose death on Sunday at a hospital in Jau, 300kms northeast of Sao Paulo, was reported by national television news programmes.

Local media reports said she was 1.57 metres tall and weighed just 35kgs.

“Another victim of anorexia,” the Globo newspaper said on its website, alongside a glamorous photo of the blonde-coiffed Bastos. An English teacher and a skilled piano player, Bastos was an amateur historian and wrote a literature column for a hometown website.

Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported that she described herself as “thin” on an internet discussion group and friends said they had to “fight with her to eat”. A former boyfriend, Leandro Murgo, told reporters Bastos was a chubby teenager and became fixated on losing weight.

Brazilians were shocked at the November 14 death of 21-year-old model Ana Carolina Reston, who died of generalised infection caused by anorexia nervosa. She was reportedly 1.72 metres tall and weighed about 40kgs.

Two days later, college student Carla Sobrado Casalle, 21, died in the southeastern city of Araraquara, also with symptoms linked to anorexia.

She was 1.74 metres tall and weighed 45kgs. A third anorexia victim died later in the month.

Vía: Gulfnews.

Pandeblog shows us the faces of the dead skinny girls

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I’ve found at the official site of the show a lot of pics of this thinspiration. I think she’s extremely skinny. I don’t like her.

What do you think about Marianne Berglund?

An indication of what’s on the minds of America’s Internet surfers - celebrities, talented or not - was revealed Wednesday when AOL and Lycos announced the results of the top searches carried out by visitors to their websites in 2006.

AOL users picked Paris Hilton, a professional celebrity, as their most searched-for celebrity while singer Clay Aiken was the top choice at Lycos.

Among Lycos searchers, their favorite search wasn’t a person this year, but a new phenomenon: poker. “Search activity for poker has been steadily climbing since it made its first appearance on the 2004 year-end list at number 10,” Lycos reported, noting that searches for poker had climbed 434 percent in the last year.

Celebrities nevertheless had their day in the sun at Lycos as Pamela Anderson finished fourth and Paris Hilton was in fifth place. Britney Spears was tenth.

Aiken was the most-searched-for male of the year on Lycos while Pamela Anderson, already noted, garnered the most votes for a female personality.

“This annual list of top searches is always a fun way to look back at the year and see what sparked interest,” said Timothy Tuttle, AOL Video VP, in a statement. The top searched word on AOL was “weather.”

The top news story at AOL was gas prices. At Lycos it was the Iraq war.

Computer and high-tech searches were conspicuous by their absence. The closest Web surfers came to showing interest in the field were searches for Apple Computer’s iPod - it was the most searched-for gadget on AOL Search; at Lycos, the iPod was the fourth most-searched “fad” of 2006, ranking behind poker, MySpace, and RuneScape.

Cameron Diaz has become the latest star to say she is worried about the influence of ultra-skinny celebrities.

Her comments echo those of Billie Piper and Kate Winslet, who both criticised the phenomenon last week.

The Hollywood actress, 34, tells ITV1 show Parkinson: “I think it’s terrifying. It’s tragic and sad.

“I think that it’s a sickness, something that’s going on in someone’s head where their perspective is off.

“We get ideals from images that we see and there certainly should be more responsibility put on those people who are putting those images out into the world.

“Let’s be a little bit more responsible to what’s realistic.”

She adds: “I’m a skinny girl, so all my life all I have ever wanted to be is curvaceous and voluptuous, have everything falling out everywhere.

“Some people…their perception and their perspective is completely askew.”

Last week, former Doctor Who star Piper said Victoria Beckham should not be a teenage role model because of her tiny frame.

The star, who suffered from anorexia, said she worried that younger people were looking up to skinny stars.

Former singer Piper, 24, said: “I think the whole size-zero debate is disgusting.

“Some models you see are tiny because that’s the way they were born, but then they’ll get the attention and that will start feeding a fire.
“My sister, who is 13, looks amazing but she’s already worried about her figure.
“She loves Posh and I say: ‘Come on Ellie. She’s tiny. What’s wrong with Shakira? She’s sexy, curvy,’ but she has no interest.”

Winslet also joined the debate, describing the trend as “unbelievably disturbing“.

The 31-year-old said she refused to have any magazines showing skinny stars in her house because of the damaging effect it could have on her six-year-old daughter, Mia.

“It’s only a matter of time before she becomes aware of it and it frightens the life out of me,” she said.

Nicole Richie and Kate Bosworth are among the celebrities whose shrinking figures have been the subject of debate.

The controversy over underweight models has been raging since the death last month of Ana Carolina Reston, 21, a Brazilian model who suffered from anorexia (some pics here).

In August, Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos, 22, died of heart failure after not eating for several days.

I’ve found this tips in a pro ana site. What do you think about it?

1. WATER…I can’t say it enough…WaterWaterWaterWater Water…Any questions?

2. Three words: Crest White Strips. Here’s the deal. You’re supposed to wear these on your upper and lower teeth for 30 minutes each, 2x a day. And you definitely cannot eat while you’ve got these babies on. You can have up to 2 hours a day of literally not being able to eat! If you put them on about 15 minutes before dinner then you can’t eat dinner with your family and they’ll have to let you eat on your own later. It’s perfect!

3. Ride out the hour. When you start to get hungry, just tell yourself that you’ll wait until the end of the hour to eat anything. That way you’ll have time to think about whether or not you really want those calories, and you’ll also feel really powerful since you’ve proved to yourself that you can go for that time without food.

4. Move around. Bounce your feet, wiggle your fingers, every little calorie counts.
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Dec. 18, 2006 (Newsweek)
If a food craving strikes, try a manicure to “keep your hands occupied.”
This kind of tip is common fare on pro-”ana” (anorexia) and pro-”mia” (bulimia) Web sites. Well intended or not, they’re not “benign,” says Dr. Rebecka Peebles of Stanford University, coauthor of “Surfing for Thinness,” published in Pediatrics last week. Stanford researchers surveyed patients treated for eating disorders, ages 10 to 22, and found that users of pro-eating-disorder sites were sick longer. And 96 percent of them reported learning new tips for weight loss or purging; 69 percent said they used them.

The sites tend to gloss over bad news: people with anorexia are 56 times more likely than their peers to commit suicide. (And they’re not broadcasting the November anorexia-related death of Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston.)

Sites deny being harmful, saying they provide a community for those with eating disorders. The term “pro-ana” is broadly used, and sites vary greatly. “We offer them support, saying, ‘It will be. Continue going to your doctor’,” says five-foot, 89-pound proana.us owner Anna Robbins.

In November, the Academy for Eating Disorders suggested a mandatory warning statement: “Warning: anorexia nervosa is a potentially deadly illness. The site you are about to enter provides material that may be detrimental to your health.”

—Karen Springen

LONDON (Reuters) - Marg Oaten’s daughter was a happy, healthy girl who loved table tennis and drama until at the age of 10 she developed anorexia. Twelve years on she is still fighting the illness, which almost killed her.
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“I was absolutely distraught,” said Oaten, 54. “It is the worst thing in the world to know your daughter might die.”

At her darkest point, Oaten said her daughter existed on five flakes of cereal a day, washed down with a mouthful of water.

Children as young as seven can suffer from eating disorders. The illness also afflicts older women as well as men and boys, though it is most common in young women, health experts say.

In Britain, about five to ten percent of women aged 14 to 24 suffer from some form of eating disorder. The ratio falls to 1 percent for the whole female population, said Professor Janet Treasure, head of the eating disorders service and research unit at King’s College London.

Bulimia nervosa, when a person binges and vomits, is two to five times more common than anorexia nervosa, when someone restricts their intake of food and drink, she said.

Both psychiatric disorders, can be fatal — two models from Latin America died this year after becoming anorexic — or cause permanent health defects such as brittle bones and infertility.
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With skimpy swimsuits and trips to the beach in mind, toning various body parts and dropping a few pounds in time for summer has become a priority for many. Coupled with regular cardiovascular exercise, healthy eating habits can severely impact one’s weight as well as one’s overall body image.

When it comes to shaping up and slimming down, several factors impact a person’s body and general healthiness. Different diets and eating routines work for different people. The following “dos” should put a positive spin on helping those who wish to revamp their eating habits in the hopes of transforming their bodies for the better.

DO eat well-balanced meals throughout the day, kick starting your metabolism with breakfast as often as possible.

DO eat several helpings of salad, fruits and vegetables throughout the day. Recommended amount is five servings of fruit and vegetables each day.

DO drink lots of water. Strive for at least eight glasses a day, but drink as much as you are able. Your body will eventually crave the water, which often makes you less hungry for snacks throughout the day while also flushing toxins from your body.

DO avoid eating simply because you are bored. Popping candy, cookies and other sweets into your mouth merely to pass the time is not conducive to modifying and maintaining a healthy body image.

DO sit down; enjoy your food and CHEW! Avoid scarfing down your lunch in the car as you drive. Rushing meals and trying to get too many other things done while eating may prevent the food from digesting properly. Take the time to enjoy a leisurely meal without constantly trying to do something else.
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On the afternoon of August 12, Nicole Richie finally reached her boiling point. As the actress and a friend exited the Planet Blue boutique in Malibu, California, a photographer yelled out to her, “Nicole, you look disgusting. Gain some f—cking weight!” A little while later, a shaken Richie walked right up to the photographer’s window and, in tears, verbally confronted him. Richie talked to Us’s Ken Baker about what made her snap, how she’s taking control of her life and her hopes for a healthy and successful future.

“You don’t scream at people that they are overweight, so what makes people think that they have the right to scream at me that I am underweight? It’s upsetting and mean,” Nicole tells Us. “I am not anorexic. At the moment, I was just sick of everyone constantly bothering me about how I look. I walked up to the photographer and told him, ‘What if I really had anorexia? What if I had a disease? How would you feel about saying such horrible things?’ He probably just wanted to get a rise out of me, but I’m a human being and he hurt my feelings.”

Vía: PopSugar

What do you think?
Does she thinspire you ?