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annals of anorexia
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annals of anorexia
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the jezebel diet
4 Ways To Get Your Kids To Eat Healthy Without Giving Them Eating Disorders
Yesterday's post equating Barack Obama embarrassing his daughter Malia with his firm handshakes of her ten-year-old peers with my dad's own litany of mortifyingly weird habits alerted me to another unexploited parallel between my parents and the Obamas: Michelle Obama's control over Malia's caloric intake as told to (and invariably overemphasized in) a recent issue of US Weekly. Now, I don't have the issue, but the blogs explain that Michelle used to save time by sending the kids to school with Lunchables, but she cut back on the processed foods when Malia's pediatrician warned her she was "tipping the scale." Now, I'm only taking on this topic because we clearly don't cover body issues enough on this site, but…here we go: it is summer, the season of funnel cake and deep-dish lethargy, and I think the moms of this world need to feel safe tempering kids' voracious high-fructose corn syrup appetites without worrying their subtle nods toward the whole-grain fiber-rich persuasions will later manifest themselves as Scars For Life. As a Veteran of Eating Disorders that had absolutely Nothing To Do With My Mom, I think I'm uniquely qualified to offer some advice. More »
annals of anorexia
Boy Anorexic Sheds Light On Girl Anorexics
The idea of male anorexics is difficult for many people to wrap their heads around, since they're not heard from -—or talked about — very often. But the documentary I'm a Boy Anorexic, which aired recently on BBC America, follows the story of a few of them. Interestingly, the film also illuminates the issue as it pertains to girls. Listening to the boys' stories on what triggered their anorexia, it's clear that many of their triggers are those found in girls: They were teased by kids in school for being chubby, they wanted to emulate celebrity heroes, etc. The fact that less boys suffer from this is merely evidence that this disease isn't gender specific, but the amount of societal pressures are.
modelslips
Dear Models Of The World: Are We All Too Busy Starving Ourselves To Form A Union Already?
Modeling. I'll be honest: I didn't really give much of a shit about the plight of its willowy practitioners before I met Tatiana. Now, Tatiana's going to be okay: she's doing this to travel and learn and meet the sort of people you wouldn't meet performing the other types of slave labor to which educated young twentysomethings generally subject themselves, but the rest of them remind me of all those once-promising high school basketball players languishing in foreign club teams and living paycheck to paycheck in incredibly cramped quarters with nothing getting them up in the morning beyond the whole "Well, I've held out this long…" rationale. Which is to say, models are just like us. Except! In what other industry can your boss get away with telling an 108-pound cash cow like Coco Rocha: "We don't want you to be anorexic, we just want you to look it"? I mean, sure, it's one thing to "look" anorexic to me, an objective observer, but this is an industry, as we found out yesterday, in which the conventional wisdom holds that Karolina Kurkova is "fat"? Anyway, after last week's harrowing experience volunteering for the Plutocracy, Tatiana came up with some good ideas for reforming the business. We really do hope the agencies of the world take her advice! More »
self-help
John Prescott's Ugly Common Person's Guide To Coping With Eating Disorders
Remember that deputy Prime Minister who resigned two years ago with Tony Blair only to resurface a year and a half later with a memoir about his decades-long struggle with bulimia? The British press sure does! And while coverage of this confession has generally fallen into the category of "merciless mockfest", an interview in the latest British Esquire convinced me he was doing bulimics of the world a service. Because while writing about your eating disorder isn't really a British thing to do, John Prescott's method of dealing with his eating disorder is kind of hilariously British, starting with the way his wife caught wind of the problem: she noticed symptoms she'd learned about from Princess Di. Which is, of course, the grand irony: the kids all assume eating disorders are the path to looking like Di and Nicole Richie when, ha ha ha, Prescott pukes his food too! Herewith, John Prescott's Stiff Upper Esophagus Guide To To Coming To Terms With Your Puking Problem, culled from Esquire. More »
Dying To Be Thin
Janell Smith was hospitalized for an eating disorder which she battled for months and was left at 68 pounds and in need of a feeding tube to sustain herself. After a month of treatment, Janell's father claims that her insurance company, Magellan, discharged her prematurely, which resulted in Janell committing suicide a few days after her release. Her death was nearly five years ago but her father's case against the insurance company is still continuing. The insurance company claims that Janell discharged herself after they had said they planned to review her insurance case, and that she showed no signs of suicidal tendencies. The claims against Magellan and the fact that many insurance companies do not cover treatment for eating disorders may reveal the lack of understanding of the seriousness of eating disorders. Is it any coincidence that a disease not taken seriously is also most prevalent in young women? [ABC News]
consumption olympics
Teen Vogue Gives Summer Olympians A Sliiight Makeover
Although we were so very heartened to see Teen Vogue editor Amy Astley take the evil fashion industry to task for perpetuating unrealistic body ideals on the Today show, we admit we were skeptical! Just how was this new focus on health going to manifest itself in the pages of her theretofore anorex-positive magazine, hmmm? Now we know! Just in time to celebrate the Genocide Olympics, the July Teen Vogue is celebrating female athleticism in a 12-page fashion spread. (This is in stark contrast to its big sister Vogue, which only last month ran an entire "body issue" celebrating male athleticism by pairing male athletes with female…supermodels.) Such independence and spunk, that Teen Vogue! Catch the mag's take on fencing, beach volleyball, ping-pong, and leaning against a balance beam looking vaguely malnourished in a Berhard Willhelm cape and vintage Indian headdress,after the jump. See girls, you can be "athletic" without sacrificing your ACL. — or your BMI. More »
Modeling Agency Will Incite Thinness If It Damn Well Chooses!
Despite recent half-assed attempts to impose healthier weight standards on the fashion industry, it seems some valiant holdouts just won't be dictated to! Australian writer Patty Huntington draws our attention to some of the truly alarming physiques on view in Elite's modeling profile - at last view, still the highlighted images on their site - making the point that "It’s difficult to fathom how anyone could look at these shots and believe they represent a terrific advertisement for the model, the agency and indeed, the fashion industry." Personally, it prompted me to reach for a donut. Subversive scare tactics, perhaps? [News.com.au]
american titocracy
Sharpen The Knives: A Science Fiction Convention Happened, And Some Fat People Came!
When last we wrote about science fiction conventions we learned about something called the Open Source Boob Project, wherein women attendees kindly volunteered to wear buttons allowing desirous men to grope their tits. If only all convention attendees were so open and accepting! Last weekend, a woman named Rachel Moss attended the World's Leading Feminist Science Fiction Convention or WisCon, about which she blogged,"This is my second year attending WisCon. I go because I love this. I remember how much I hate my fellow women, and then I go the whole rest of the year thankful that normal life is never this horrible" before posting pictures of various obese attendees complete with snarky captions. Rachel has since been publicly shamed and both apologized and removed her post, but a screengrab of her post excerpted in another forum arrived in our inbox yesterday night. More »
Remember The Sisterhood
"Did you ever think you would hear Bill O'Reilly's channel applaud Jezebel for taking a 'firm moral position'?" Uh, no. We're still in shock. Click the pic for the video. (Related: I am officially semi-obsessed with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, if only because we disturbingly share the same views on cities and some of the deadly sins. Though I am definitely also "sloth.") [5 Resolutions.]
loss of appetite
The Most Disgusting Thing A Person Has Ever Done To Lose Weight
Today I saw one of the most disturbing clips I've ever seen on television, courtesy of the Tyra show. It featured a 19-year-old anorexic named Cassie, who weighs 85 lbs and, as her disease would dictate, believes that she's fat. Cassie takes drastic measures to lose weight, like taking 35 laxatives at a time, chewing on paper, and eating cotton (the latter two, she admits, she learned to do by reading "pro ana" sites). When she does actually eat food, she only allows herself 150 calories a day. (She used to eat dirt, but then stopped because she was afraid of "dirt calories.") Because years of purging have ruined her gag reflex, she can no longer vomit, so instead, she sticks a feeding tube down her throat and suctions food out of her stomach. Even Tyra, who has undoubtedly seen a whole lot of disordered eating in her life working as a model, was beyond shocked. Clip above.
annals of anorexia
Should You Sleep In Saran Wrap? Eat Only Every Other Day? Elle Answers Your Pressing Diet Questions!
This I will say for Elle: The magazine's journalistic standards may be miles above their peers in fashion magazining, it might be the only women's magazine targeted at my age group I don't want to kill myself reading, but. Never did this publication let any sort of "mission" put a damper on its steady stream of "insane diets you can try if you are insane" features. The stories have the same arc: I came, I starved, I looked temporarily hotter wearing something completely impractical someplace completely idiotic, I bought $973 worth of fancy supplements and talked to two "experts"...yeah fuck all that, cheese. Anyway after last month's anemic juice fast story, I thought I was over this genre. Then I read "Fast Times: Could Eating Every Other Day Have The Same Payoff As Full-Time Calorie Restriction?" (Um: if you can handle starving every other day, sure!) But that was just the start. Ten pages later: More »
clips
Alexandra Michael Is About 28 Pounds Too Fat For Modeling
We used to play a little game called "Arm or Leg?" with the limbs of some of the models in Teen Vogue. (Such as this one.) But today on the Today show, Teen Vogue editor-in-chief Amy Astley announced the magazine's pro-ana days are over. Astley was moved by the story of 17-year-old model Alexandra Michael, who joined her this morning to talk about how she was sent home from Paris for being too fat, but she's okay with that since her hair is no longer falling out after she packed on 30 pounds in eating disorder rehab. And who does Amy Astley blame for the industry's deleterious emaciation obsession? "I think it's cyclical," she says. Ha ha ha, tell that to the kid who didn't get her period for a year!
annals of anorexia
US Weekly Shills Celebrity Starvation Diet To Young Girls Everywhere
Most celeb followers know by now that Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna were born again by their mutual trainer, Tracy Anderson, who has her clients work out for 2 hours a day, six days a week. But in addition to the exercise regime, Anderson also puts her clients on a strict diet that allows no processed food, dairy or spices ("They're bloating and upset your digestive system, which causes you to store fat"), oil and sauces ("They're just added calories"), and discourages drinking alcohol or caffeine (sip 1.5 to 3 liters of water daily instead)." And while this does sorta make sense (since processed foods are the devil's work and all, though I'm not exactly sure what spice every did to hurt anyone), the portions allowed seem, well, a bit extreme. (But then again, adherence to it will apparently ensure that you lose 5 lbs a week, which is clearly all a girl could ever ask for, right?) After the jump, three days' worth of the sample menus given by Anderson to US Weekly for the magazine's readers to
Annals Of Anorexia
Virginia Heffernan has a piece called "The Girls Of Thinspo" for The New York Times' 'Medium' blog. She touches on the recently-reported news that France is attempting to ban "inciting thinness." Heffernan viewed some thinspo videos and writes, "It's worth trying to figure out how the tragedy of anorexia got woven into the glamour of it." One of the clips is so sad it's kind of hard to watch all the way through — and yet it's just a montatge of pictures of models set to music. The kind of models you see almost everyday in fashion magazines. (It's embedded. Click the pic if you care to see it.) [New York Times]
annals of anorexia
Again, Eating Disorders Are Not Just For Teens
This is Rosemary Pope. She died last month at the age of 49 because her anorexia caused her heart to shrink "to the size of a child's." Pope is not alone: as has been previously and recently reported, anorexia in women over 40 is on the rise. There are a number of theories as to why the number of grown up anorexics is going up. First off, many of these women suffered from anorexia as teens and twenty-somethings and never really recovered. Another possible reason is a growing awareness of the disease which causes more women to self-diagnose their eating disorder. Yet another reason, posits the Guardian, is "the increased pressure on older women to stay young. Surrounded by images of women such as Madonna, Teri Hatcher and Jane Fonda (who has admitted to suffering an eating disorder herself), women are exposed to increasingly unrealistic images of how they should look as they age and are working harder than ever to counter the effects of getting old." More »
Photoshop of Horrors?
Like most first daughters (and humans) Jenna Bush has yo-yoed over the years, and everyone likes to deprive themselves in advance of nuptials. But this pic from the May Vogue sounded all our internal "Holy Liquefy!" alarms. So we collected a bunch of recent Jenna pics and leave the fat content Kremlinology to you: airbrush diet? Or has Jenna Bush become Ana Bush? Click the pic for the gallery. (And click it again to enlarge the Vogue pic.)
So you know how Mariah Carey just lost a bit of weight, or as the tabs delicately put it, "slimmed down"? Did you think she did it of her own volition? Ha! Mimi's downsizing has apparently come at the behest of one Andre Leon Talley, who works for a certain ladymag named Vogue. (You might remember Vogue is same publication that told Laura and Kate Mulleavy, the sisters-designers behind Rodarte, to lose weight as well.) Vogue: Making women hate their bodies, one designer dress at a time. [5 Resolution]
