Too Anxious to Get Thin: Think Again

Thin­ness is con­sid­ered a pri­ma­ry stan­dard of beau­ty in our time. The desire of hav­ing a match­stick-thin fig­ure like super mod­els is dri­ving girls to crazy lev­els. Sel­dom do we think about the neg­a­tive reper­cus­sions of such fash­ions. One such neg­a­tive is an abnor­mal­i­ty called anorex­ia ner­vosa. It is an eat­ing dis­or­der in which too much food restric­tions and irra­tional fear of gain­ing weight results in exces­sive weight loss, some­times irre­versible. It dis­turbs meta­bol­ic and hor­mon­al bal­ance for­ev­er.

Vale­ria Lev­itin, 39 years Old Russ­ian ex-mod­el, shown here before and after suf­fer­ing from anorex­ia is one such case. Healthy till her ear­ly twen­ties, she was fall­en prey to anorex­ia. She describes her con­di­tion ‘lone­ly, unat­trac­tive and repul­sive for the peo­ple around her’. Iron­i­cal­ly she receives many requests by peo­ple, espe­cial­ly girls, for get­ting tips to get thin. She is instead keen­er on spread­ing aware­ness against this dan­ger­ous trend.

(Pub­lished in The Laal­tain — Issue 6)