No Thinspiration

Aimee Liu, the author of over 10 books, spoke with me recently about her new work, Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders (Warner Books, 2007), and how her life with anorexia impacted the words within.

Kelly Jad’on: Why the title, Gaining?

Aimee Liu: That is the word which strikes fear and loathing in the hearts of those with eating disorders. It is associated with gaining fat. It has richer meanings, though. Gaining pleasure, gaining independence, gaining confidence. All of these appetites are connected. To gain freedom from eating disorders, you have to gain in power and maturity. This is central to recovery from eating disorders.

In our culture, women are told implicitly to be afraid of gaining weight both in pounds and purpose; a lot of women portrayed as celebrities or in fashion magazines are encouraged to remain in a state of immature adolescence. The unspoken message has long been that an “ideal” woman is a perennial child whose sole value and responsibility is to look cute. But today, with the creation of Size Zero clothing, the message is even worse. Now the “perfect” woman is a zero - in other words, nonexistent.

Aimee, where did the anorexia begin? How old were you when you began losing or wasting?

Wasting has multiple meanings related to one’s life and body. I originally began dieting in 7th grade. I developed what is now considered true symptoms of an eating disorder in the 8th grade. That was back in the 1960s, when few were diagnosed. I was obsessive, and at 5’6”, remained below 100 lbs until college, around age 19-20.

I was never as severe as some anorexics, near death; I maintained a weight that was too low. Like a vast majority who hover on the brink of anorexia, the real damage is psychological.
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Victoria Beckham has inadvertently boosted the sales of a new diet book that highlights the current obsession with extreme svelteness.

Posh ‘n’ text: Victoria’s patronage gave a boost to sales of ‘Skinny Bitch’
Until recently, not many people had heard of the American diet book, Skinny Bitch. That is, until Victoria Beckham decided to buy a copy.

The perpetually pouty British singer - dressed in her trademark dark sunglasses - was snapped by paparazzi buying the diet guide in an LA boutique last month. Within hours of the photo appearing on the web, the book had jumped from 77,939th place on the Amazon website sales chart to 209th - a whopping increase of 37,000 percent.

The sassy book - described as a “no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous” - had failed to garner much attention prior to being lifted off the shelf by the rail-thin Posh. Now its authors are reaping in the cash as thousands of readers turn to the unconventional book for quick weight loss advice.

The book was written by two LA fashion luminaries: former model Kim Barnouin, who has a degree in holistic nutrition, and ex-Ford model agent Rory Freedman. “They may be bitches,” the book warns. “But they are skinny bitches.”

Not for the faint hearted, the in-your-face book is loaded with strong language and no-holds-barred advice such as, “you are a total moron if you think the Atkins Diet will make you thin”; “soda is liquid Satan”; and “coffee is for pussies”.

Based on a vegan philosophy, the Skinny Bitch guide encourages women to eat whole grains, fruits and vegetables while urging them to abandon dairy products, eggs, meat and fish. The authors also issue a scathing attack on meat eaters, calling those who choose to eat meat while attempting to lose weight “morons”.
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The struggle with anorexia is a long way from the glamour of catwalks, fashion glossies and the latest diet. Two men talk about the women they love for whom ‘thin’ is a constant state of mind

It’s hard to say whether, if Grace had been bigger, I would still have found her attractive. You can never know that kind of thing. But her slimness wasn’t part of my initial attraction to her. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Slim girl - great!’ It was more about our connection. I don’t think Grace was very thin when I first met her, and I don’t think her size has really changed since then. Physically she had recovered from anorexia while at university. The psychological part is a longer recovery process and I met her during this time, when she had just moved from university to London, and was in her first week of a new job. She wasn’t comfortable with changing her environment or disrupting her control or routine; it wasn’t an easy transition for her.

But I would say she was still recovering for the first year we were together. We met at a work party - she was 23 and on the graduate scheme for an advertising agency; I was 24 and worked for a media agency in the same London building. We got talking and found we knew some of the same people. Grace called me the next day to arrange another meeting that weekend, and a month later she was my girlfriend. On our second date - over dinner in a restaurant - Grace told me: ‘There’s something you need to know. I was anorexic, but I’m better now.’ I didn’t really understand what eating disorders were all about. I don’t think I would have known at all, unless she had told me, at least not for a couple of months. I might have asked her why she needed to diet, because she was very slim, but I never thought of her as too thin. Every woman seems to be on a diet and think she is too fat! As soon as Grace told me, I was very conscious of looking out for signs that she was controlling her diet. I looked to see if she had finished her plate, but there was nothing really obvious. No one else would have noticed.

I read Grace’s book [Thin, published by Penguin, which details her experience of anorexia], and there’s a section where Grace says she felt she had to tell me this secret, even though she’d only just met me. She wrote that she didn’t want to spend too much time in the loo, because I’d probably think she was being sick. That’s exactly what I was thinking! Being sick after eating is, of course, a different eating disorder altogether, but I didn’t really know that then. For a few weeks after she told me, I kept an eye on her - seeing if she went to the toilet during a meal, that sort of thing. But as I got to know more about how Grace was actually feeling and the history of it, and how far she had come from where she was, I got less concerned. Grace has actually never binged in the time I’ve known her.
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If popular entertainment revolves around physical appearance - then what might go on in the mind of a TV executive?

Recently actress Alex Kingston criticized TV show Desperate Housewives. Kingston claimed “she was turned down for Felicity Huffman’s role because she has too many curves.” Kingston (known for her role in ER) went on to say “I didn’t get the part, and I know why: irrespective of acting ability, I’m just way too big.”

Of course these are her assumptions - and may simply be ’sour grapes’ - but one look at the cast of Housewives shows that Kingston may be on the mark.

The question is - why? What’s with the ‘thin‘ casting? It is obvious that in certain circles, and in certain TV shows - size is a real factor. This is not to say that women cannot be naturally slim-figured - but why go out of the way to ensure that a female cast remains thin?
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More than half the people diagnosed with eating disorder anorexia never fully recover, 20 percent remain chronically ill and five percent die, the British Medical Journal estimates.

Here are some key facts on the disease:

WHO IS MOST AT RISK?
- Anorexia has the highest fatality rate of any psychiatric illness, with 13 to 18 percent of sufferers dying, most commonly due to heart disease or suicide, health experts in Britain say.

- Eating disorders are generally more prevalent in industrialized countries, among young women or adolescent girls.

- An estimated three percent of young women experience eating disorders. In Britain, about five to ten percent of women aged 14 to 24 suffer from some form of eating disorder.

- Eating disorders are more common among competitive athletes than the general population. Female gymnasts, ballerinas, figure skaters, and distance runners are at high risk, as are male bodybuilders and wrestlers.
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