Article first published as Stuffed and Starved in the Age of Ambivalence on Technorati.
This week as I read of the deaths of French model, Isabelle Caro and her mother, Marie I recalled my own history of cyclical stuff-and-starve.
Yesterday I learned also of a startling new male model, Andrej Pejic. The Bosnian blond 19-year-old, who has already been booked by designer Jean Paul Gaultier and two editions of Vogue magazine, looks like an entrancing young woman.
Is this what the fashion industry wants? Not gracious girls, but skeletal androgynous men who won’t bother agency bosses with neuroses like nosh-and-puke diets or premenstrual tension? What a great symbol of our pre-pubescent 21st century as the age of ambivalence! 
It was reported that Marie Caro committed suicide through remorse for her daughter’s death following a near life-long battle with anorexia and the publicity surrounding it.
Further, her husband has claimed negligence by the hospital where their daughter died from a respiratory infection and intends to sue. His case must be groundless as the hospital will surely argue that Isabelle – who ironically looked like a Bosnian concentration camp survivor – died from years of self-imposed starvation.
I had a private war with Bulimia Nervosa during my late teens without realising what I suffered. It happened during the very early 70s when I had become enormously fat from using a contraceptive pill to regulate bad periods. The only effect was terrible weight-gain, both from the pill and over-eating, caused by crises at home and school.
Coincidentally, Anorexia Nervosa started to become hot news at that time. Indeed one of my friends – desperate to emulate her prettier, smarter and much thinner sister – enjoyed a few days in hospital after starving herself during a holiday in Israel .
Only much later did I realise that while she had the attention - I had the bulimia - along with the dreadful taunts about my gross appearance. I won’t describe what I did on my self-destructive binges. Needless to say, I could not tell anyone and – if possible – was filled more with self-disgust than food. Now I well believe Isabelle felt that a dominant, over-anxious, pushy mother would not allow her to grow up.
Somehow, after a disastrous and wasted few weeks at ‘Weightwatchers’ and about 18 months of ridiculous self-denial, I reduced my weight to normal. Other times of great unhappiness have caused me to feast and fast but I have never again been ‘bulimic’ as I understand the word. However, 40 years later I still eat hugely and suffer from occasional stomach complaints – all of it the legacy of my secret bulimia.
But anorexics of all stripes inevitably see the fat person in the mirror, no matter their real size. It’s like being an alcoholic or a gambler – with one vital difference. One may vow never again to drink alcohol or place a bet, but one cannot refrain indefinitely from food – without becoming another mortuary statistic.
I make no apologies for republishing ‘before-and-after’ pictures of Isabelle Caro. May her dreadful, harrowing story be a lesson to all us mere mortals. After all, the gods of the fashion industry are far too busy showing off to care. 
msniw
1 comment:
Heartbreaking story. Thank you for your courage and honesty in sharing your own. I've been down similar roads. It bothers me terribly that when I was under seven stone and living on black coffee and cigarettes, people kept telling me how fantastic I looked. Now I eat, well, a bit too much and am overweight but *much* healthier, those voices have gone quiet....one of the nice things about being an adult is the ability to surround oneself with people who think one is fabulous regardless of weight or other irrelevant criteria. Poor Isabelle. Her poor mother. And Vogue and the other purveyors of a skeletal ideal of beauty should be ashamed.
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