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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Their views on food and body image could not be more different: Susannah Jowitt is the author of Fat, So?, which celebrates larger women. Candida Crewe wrote Eating Myself about her battle with anorexia and bulimia.

So what happened when they met?

Susannah Jowitt, 38, is 5ft 7in, weighs 14 stone and is a size 16 to 18.

She lives in West London with her husband Anthony and children Adelaide, five, and Winston, three. Susannah says: When I was 14, I nicked two pieces of bread from the middle of a new loaf of Hovis, then carefully re-sealed the bag with that fiddly piece of sticky yellow tape to escape detection.

Such extraordinary attention to detail was all in vain. My mother had counted the number of slices in the loaf and confronted me with my crime.

It was at that moment that I should have realised all was not well in our family’s Garden of Eating. How many parents count the slices in a loaf?

Such elaborate surveillance was necessary because I was, apparently, a Fat Child and needed to diet. My brother, on the other hand, was a Thin Child, so he was allowed sweets after tea (that’s how I remember it, anyway).

My parents yo-yoed between being people who loved their food (my mother was a truly great cook) and people who paid for their love of food by eating grapefruit. I inherited their greediness but, to my mother’s frustration, I missed out on the guilt gene.

Looking back at photos of myself as an adolescent, I wasn’t even particularly big - sturdy, yes, and with the same frame as my mum, who, by that time, was fat - but certainly nothing to worry about. But worry she did.
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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

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.

Katharine McPhee discusses her courageous decision to enter rehab for her eating disorder.
“American Idol” second-place runner-up KATHARINE McPHEE credits the hit TV series with helping her get her life on track. In the December issue of Shape magazine, currently on stands, the 22-year-old beauty talks about her decision to enter the Eating Disorder Center of California to deal with her bulimia.

“After I made it through the first round of auditions, I knew I had to get better if I was going to go all the way,” Katharine recalls in her interview. “In this way I can say the show literally saved my life.”

After discussing her bulimia with her mother, Katharine entered the program, finishing up the three-month outpatient program just days before “Idol” stopped airing the audition episodes and began focusing on the Top 24.

“The therapists asked me if I was ready to let go of bulimia, and I definitely was,” Katharine told the magazine. “Yes, I was scared, but I knew I had suffered enough.”

Growing up, Katharine had always been considered skinny. It wasn’t until she decided to try modeling and acting that food became an issue. She was only 15 years old, but casting directors kept telling the size-10 teenager to lose 10 more pounds. The end result was that she became obsessed with her weight, and when she saw a TV show about purging, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Since leaving Eating Disorder Center of California, Katharine says she has been successful in using the tools they gave her, so that she made it all the way to the “American Idol” finals, through this past summer’s “Idol” tour and through the stress of recording her upcoming CD without suffering a relapse.

“It’s hard to eat healthy on the road, but as I learned in the center, it’s not necessarily what you eat but how much,” she says.

Alanis Morrisette:
Singer- She reports struggling with an eating disorder

Alfred Hitchock:
Director- Struggled with compulsive eating (now deceased)

Anna Freud:
Psychoanalyst- Documented that she struggled with anorexia

Anne Sexton:
Poet- Has struggled with anorexia and depression

Audrey Hepburn:
Actress- 103 lbs at 5″7

Beverly Johnson:
Model- Has been in recovery from anorexia and bulimia

Billy Bob Thorton:
Actor- Struggled with anorexia after losing weight for a role he played

Brandi:
Singer- Has reported to struggle with diet pill abuse

Briget Hall:
Model, Has been in recovery from an eating disorder

Candace Cameron:
Actress- Has been in recovery from eating disorder

Karen Carpenter:
Singer- Died from long struggle with Anorexia

Cathy Rigby:
Gymnast- Been in recovery from anorexia & bulimia, activist

Cherry Boone O’Neil:
Singer- Has been in recovery from anorexia

Cheryl Tiegs:
Model- Has been in recovery for an eating disorder

Chris Farley:
Comedian- Died from compulsive eating & drug abuse

Chris Robinson:
Singer- It is rumored that he has battled anorexia

Christina Ricci:
Actress- Has been in recovery for anorexia & depression

Christine Alt:
Model- Has been in recovery from anorexia

Christy Hienrich:
Gymnast- Died from her struggle with anorexia

Courtney Thorne-Smith:
Actress recovering from Eating Disorders

Crown-Princess Victoria of Sweden:
Royalty- Developed anorexia, came to U.S. for treatment

Daniel Johns:
Singer- Working on recovering from anorexia

Dawn Langstroth:
Singer- Has been in recovery from anorexia
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