A cause for Anorexia

(WARNING: Disturbing Images)

I’m very beholden and flattered when Dimensions Magazine approached me to helm an anti-Anorexia campaign for a cause. First off, acting for a cause has always been a tacit prerogative at the back of my mind and it’s habitually deserted when career, family and friends supersedes. That’s very wrong and reprehensible, and it really shouldn’t be my excuse anyway.

Isabelle Caro, deceased French model

During my 1 hour 15 minute radio interview with a panel and an anorexic 15 year old, I started to unravel the tainted perceptions of anorexic patients. I used to think that being anorexic was a choice, but mostly, it is a mental illness. A retrospective study into anorexia nervosa helped me better recognize the reasons why some women (on average there’s a higher percentile of women than men) fall prey to this merciless illness.

Anorexia Nervosa is a terminal eating disorder characterized by the punishing fear of gaining weight. It’s coupled with an evocative distorted self-imagery of oneself when he/she looks into the mirror. Empirically, I sometimes feel the same about myself, only that I do it to tease my own body in a lighthearted manner. Anorexics, however, would delve into a downward spiral of neurotic loss of appetite, low self-esteem and depression amongst all other petrifying attributes.

During the radio talk show, my newfound anorexic friend was shivering in pain the whole time. I assume she’s as tall as I am but she was merely even 1/3 of my weight. The most aching part of it all was when I reached out to hold her frail wrists, it felt like death. I don’t mean to lay it on thick or exaggerate, but my 1 hour 15 minutes immersion became a testimony of “mind over matter”. As I spoke to the 15 year old who was clad in a child’s dress which was still king-sized for her, she could barely concentrate. It did occur to me if my discourses were boring, but I conceded that it’s just that she didn’t have sufficient energy to keep her up half the time.

This is so not cool

This girl had smuf-blue fingernails and very swollen, protruding joints. I still can’t seem to forget how perpetually ill she had been (she was anorexic since 9 years old), and that no amount of shrink/ psychology could help cure this desolate soul. I, of course, was compelled to lend her an ear and to stand for a cause against anorexia in Asia.

I wouldn’t write too much about the causes that I stand strongly for as I’ve got an audio clip that’s in production to boot.

To hell with judgments. Celebrate women with curves.