More Articles permarexia
Beauty through the Ages
New death fuels bid to ban thin models
16th February 2007
Australian fashion industry leaders will consider following the lead
of Madrid and ban the use of ultra-thin, size-zero women on the catwalk
after the death of another model this week.
The worldwide controversy over underweight models has been fuelled again
Uruguayan model Eliana Ramos, 18, died of heart failure on Tuesday. It
was reported that she might have had an eating disorder.
Six months ago, her sister Luisel, 22, who had not eaten for several
days, died of heart failure soon after stepping off a catwalk in
Montevideo. In November, Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died after
reportedly eating nothing but apples and tomatoes.
The deaths sparked an international debate about the ethics of using
size-zero models — a 56cm waist, which is the average measurement of an
eight-year-old girl.
In September, organisers of Madrid Fashion Week banned models with a
body mass index of less than 18.
Organisers of fashion parades in London, New York and Milan have refused
to follow suit but the British Fashion Council insisted on
healthylooking models for its shows this week.
Zoe Edquist, general manager of the Australian Fashion Council, said
yesterday that she did not know if eating disorders were a problem in
the Australian fashion industry, but recent international controversy
had prompted a forum on the issue.
“We are getting the major industry players together in March or April to
find out what their opinions are,” Ms Edquist said.
The forum would include representatives from the Australian Medical
Association and the Equal Opportunity Commission, and the imposition of
a minimum weight requirement was “definitely on the cards”, she said.
However, WA fashion identities said yesterday that enforcing weight
rules was an overreaction.
Leading designer Ruth Tarvydas said no one wanted unhealthy models and
self-regulation would work better than an outright ban.
“We’ve all been given the gift of bloody common sense and I don’t know
why we have to have so many regulations,” she said.
“It has become such an issue that designers would use their discretion.
They know there would be a backlash from the public, from the mothers
and the label if these considerations are not taken on board.”
Requirements for aspiring models to show a doctor’s certificate
declaring them healthy, as demanded in Italy, would be an exercise in
futility in Australia, Tarvydas said.
“If they can convince a doctor to write a script for something, and if
they smile at him, I’m sure some will do anything,” she said”
Perth Fashion Festival director Mariella Harvey-Hanrahan said she had
banned two “sickly looking” models from the festival last year to show
the importance of promoting a healthier image.
“I think it’s great (that) BMI restrictions have come in to Europe
because a lot of our models going there think they need to lose weight
to model in Milan,” she said. “But in Australia, we don’t have that same
issue and it’s not appropriate to enforce rules. ”
De Williams, president of the WA Fashion Industry, said a BMI ban would
be a “total overreaction”.
From the Westralian Newspaper Perth Australia
Help, I've become a victim of permarexia
By Kate Rew Evening Standard UK
ON the bus to my home in Willesden last night I spent the whole time wondering what I was going to eat. Would I have pasta? No, because wheat makes you bloat. Soup? No, I'd still be hungry. Atkins- style dinner?
No, I don't have the money to eat steak every night. I know it's stupid but I think about food all the time and it drives me crazy.
I sometimes start the day on one diet - the Cornflake Diet where you replace two of your meals with cornflakes for a fortnight - and end it on another.
I'm 29 now and have been on a diet constantly since I was 23. Even though I know I'm fairly normal, with the right weight - nearly nine stone - and a healthy life, I spend my whole time feeling fat. I'm a classic permarexic: I only come off one diet to start another.
I read about all the diets out there: the Zone, the South Beach Diet, the Blood-Type Diet, and I plan to go on all of them eventually. Of course some of them are much too complicated, even though I'm tempted - the Kate Winslet Facial Analysis Diet just takes too much planning and shopping. I'd love to find a diet that fitted into my lifestyle as well as Jennifer Aniston's but I can't go home and make up a dish of salmon, prawns and salad every night. I work as a receptionist, so it's too expensive for me to eat like that.
But that doesn't stop me trying. At the moment I'm on Weight Watchers and eating six small meals a day. The last diet I was on was Atkins and I lost about half a stone, but after six weeks I got palpitations and felt like my arteries were going to explode with bacon and sausages.
I tried the Cabbage Soup Diet where you're supposed to lose 10lb in a week, but it tasted awful and after four days I stopped because it makes you flatulent.
At school I ate nothing but popcorn for a week because I heard that Madonna had done it, until my mum found out and stopped me.
I know about all the celebrity diet plans, such as the ones followed by Martine McCutcheon, Jennifer Aniston, and Catherine Zeta- Jones. I even get a magazine called Celebrity Star Diets which features celebs' current diet plans.
There's such a deluge of information out there it's bewildering: one minute apples are healthy and the next you're not supposed to eat them because they contain too much acid. At the moment the big thing is the healthier way of doing Atkins, which just means less fat.
Right now I'd like to lose a stone and a half and be a size 10 - I'm currently a size 12.
ABOUT a quarter of women are on a diet, and when I go out to lunch with friends it's a nightmare. One friend, a size-eight management consultant, doesn't eat wheat, another refuses carbs altogether, and a few friends who work in TV are currently going to Weight Watchers with me. We'll look at the menu, then order soup and salad. I don't eat things that are unhealthy, I guess I just eat too much.
I suppose much of the problem is that I don't have the willpower to stay on a healthy eating regime. It's almost as if the strength I need comes from copying what others do.
Then I worry about being too insecure and end up ditching the diet for something else.
I think permarexia is more of a psychological syndrome than a physical one - we're conditioned to think we should look like someone else when, in fact, we're fine the way we are.
But maybe - just maybe - this new diet will help us get the job and boyfriend we want.
I'm single at the moment, but all my past boyfriends have said I have a great figure. It's always difficult for a girl to trust what they say.
It seems ridiculous that celebrity plans have such a big impact on our lifestyles.
Supermarket sales of red meat, watermelons and pork scratchings have soared because of Atkins, while sandwich shops around Notting Hill are virtually empty because people are off bread - everyone's eating organic juices and salads instead.
Because I'm bubbly, people don't know how deeply eating and diets affect me.
I recently refused a holiday with friends because I'm fatter than them and don't always want to be the one "with the nice personality".
The other night I was supposed to be going out for dinner and found I couldn't get into tops I wore three months ago. I felt hideous and went to bed crying with an armful of comfort food.
It's as if there are two sides to my personality: on the one hand I know I look fine and there are more important things in life than being skinny; on the other hand, pictures of celebrities are constantly in my face, and feeling fat and ugly dominates every day. I'm not sure whether I'm normal or abnormal, whether my attitude is misguided or merely experimental, but it has almost become an obsession now and one which I wish I didn't have.
I'd love to wake up one day and not think about what I'm going to eat. But most mornings I go into the shower and take a look at myself and think "oh, no". Tearing strips off myself for not looking like an ideal is miserable and exhausting. I only told friends recently how much it got to me, because it had reached the stage where if they told me their problems I'd be thinking: "So what!
Shut up, it's doesn't matter: you're thin."
All I really want is to be healthy and to stop thinking about dieting, so now I'm going to see a nutritionist.
Hopefully in a while I'll be able to go out for lunch with friends and just think about what I want to eat that's healthy and not see everything in terms of calories.
Interview by Kate Rew
. For a full investigation of permarexia, see the UK Elle magazine, October 2006
ARE YOU A PERMAREXIC?
WE have become a nation obsessed with celebrity diets - supermodel Sophie Dahl decided super-slim was preferable to being voluptuous, actress Jennifer Aniston has tried the Atkins and Blood-Type diets while Sarah Ferguson is sponsored by Weight Watchers.
There are a higher proportion of overweight and underweight people in Britain than ever before, according to the independent market analysts Data monitor