“…Writer and TV presenter Dawn Porter is on an all-consuming mission… can she shrink from her curvy UK size 12 figure to the much touted super-skinny Hollywood zero (UK size 4)? Surviving on a diet of just 500 calories a day (a quarter of the daily recommended amount for a woman!), she hunts down the stylists, designers and agencies who are responsible for making skinniness not only appear possible, but the ultimate goal for any dedicated follower of fashion.”
Super Slim Me: A Mischief Special. I watched this last night, it was an interesting take on the issue. Not precisely deep, but it had it some insights.
In a similar vein BBC3 have been running Fat Men Can’t Hunt, which comes at the issue from a different angle wherein eight overweight British people have to live as hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari desert for three weeks.
It angers me though, the obsession should be with health and fitness, not with appearance. I have been extremely fit in the past, hooked on exercise. I took up karate at 30, and in three months my waist size dropped from 34″ to 30″, I lost no weight at all, just converted fat to muscle, so my BMI would have shown no change. I did gain a tremendous sense of physical wellbeing though. The men and women I trained with varied in shape – some were patently thin (lean, not emaciated) most were not, but all were fit, well and healthy. Surely, that is the point.
What an odd society we live in. We have some people choosing to starve themselves to death, while others die under their own weight.
(Also see BBC3’s Body Image Season – if you can find it)
yes, it’s worrying isn’t it. I saw something on kid’s TV the other day about a clinic for kids with eating disorders. They take kids as young as 8 who are anorexic. How on earth do they get that screwed up that young?
Easy, that’s how. Choosing to be thin is a mental illness, it’s not something that should anger someone, For most the issue starts with nothing to do with food but something they can take control of. Society presents it as something to do with food and how one looks so the sufferer quickly (and usually without knowledge) alters their thoughts into this way of thinking.
Ros, I cannot claim any expertise on the mechanics of eating disorders, I have a second cousin who came close to death in her late teens through it, and I read up on it, that is all, but as I would understand it you are quite right in pointing to the control issue as a major factor. I didn’t mean to imply, if that is what I did, that anorexics angered me, they do not. I think their condition is deeply, tragically sad.
What makes me angry is that there are people in the fashion industry, the diet industry and the media who take no responsibility for the consequences of their persistent encouragement of harmful and even dangerous behaviours and who persist in promoting a very distorted view of the ideal shape for their own gain.
I *did* suffer from an eating disorder in my early twenties even though I had to convince myself that’s what it was. It is totally about control but also it is about power too. Had the world seen fit to label thin women ugly and not beautiful (ergo powerful since a womans power lies in her attractiveness in this society) I doubt it would have lasted so long. People were envious of my weight. Such was my disorder that even now I can’t remember being thin as I only ever remember feeling and looking fat. However, at a UK size 6 I MUST have been emaciated. I can’t imagine how you can get any thinner than that! Size 4???? How???? Do they remove body organs to get that thin???
I mean I was seriously emaciated – my teeth wobbled and I could stand and count my ribs. But how much more weight could I have lost to be size zero???
Oh well – I can safely say I beat anorexia now 😉 LOL
I have tried to answer this too many times but can’t get the words right!
Above all we need to take responsibility for our own lives and our own actions. We cannot lay the blame at the feet of someone else. Yes, there is a big nightmare going on with people in the media and models just now but it’s also the screwed up minds of the individual (for a whole host of reasons) who ends up making them thin, or even fat I suppose. I’ve never been fat so I don’t know. I have been anorexic (for me it’s always going to be there), it was my decision, it was my mind, it was not media. Perhaps this is too big a mindfield to generalise!
I think that is courageous. I think you have expressed it very well, and I agree that it is important that we take responsibility for ourselves.
But, there was a point in “Super Slim” where Dawn visited a medical specialist to seek his advice in accelerating her diet. She had previously been told, when she weighed more, by her own doctor and by Olympic sports trainers that she was in fine shape. This guy told her that she was borderline obese. Now, why would he say that? Why, because he is “getting fat” by promoting the perception in his
victimspatients minds that they are fat, when they most certainly are not. There are fortunes to be made in this and they are being earned dishonestly and at a cost in human suffering and lives.Obviously that is so very different and perhaps I should have watched the programme.
Yes we all have to take responsibilty for ourselves. All I can say is when I had this disorder I was simply not well enough to take responsibility for I was sick. My perceptions were warped. My values were wrong. I was to blame for not eating and no one else, but when you have whole rooms of people oohing and ahhing and saying how fantastic you look you rely on that perception since the illness has destroyed your own. Mental illness carries no responsibilty….
I have just seen the repeat of ‘super slim me’ congratulations Dawn Porter on being brave enough to stand up and tackle this subject which so many seem to dismiss and ignore. I am the same size that Dawn was at the start of the programme and have always been a phsically fit person. I was in the armed forces for a long time and have completed several survival exercises. I am therefore fully aware of the determination Dawn must have had to continue with this experiment whilst constantly surrounded by food. I also know how much it changes your whole personality and ability to perform and cope with normally easy tasks. I thought this was a brilliant documentry that really opened my eyes to the fact that these models are NOT naturally this thin and though I have ‘fat days’ when I compare myself to famous women with skinny bodies- I now know how much happier I must be than them. I have a one year old daughter and hate the fact that she will grow up in a society that thinks the way we currently do about body image.Could everyone please just stop buying all these bloody magazines- then the industry will have to sit up and listen!
Well said. 🙂
I watched Super Slim Me – BBC 3 and I wanted to know the name of the gym that Dawn Porter went to (in London ) I guess. I’ve seen that personal trainer before on TV and I’d like to know his name . People dying to be thin and I’m desesperate to put on weight. What can I do? I’d love to read an article or watch program about thin people who can not put on weight . I’m a male by the way. Thanks.
The name of the trainer is Matt Roberts, he works from Mayfair London.
Check out his webssite
http://www.personaltrainer.uk.com
What is the name of the doctor that Dawn sees on Harley street for a body assessment?
The credits thank The British Olympic Medical Institute, Dr Anita Biswas and Jane Griffin.