There was a post on another board I frequent about a girl suspected of having anorexia. The guy posting was a one-time boyfriend, and the responses, while all seemingly in agreement about her state of mind and the need for her to find help, also had a really ugly streak to them at times.
There were a couple of comment from men mocking her for her stupidity, and saying things like she should be taken advantage of and then dumped because apparently, she deserved it. I posted a question directly addressing the need for that kind of stance but never recieved a direct response-closest was someone alluding to the comments being one step away from “tough love”. What I pretty much said was that, while I understand not being kind, I don’t understand being mean and pouring salt in the wound of what is obviously a difficult subject for her.
I was thinking about this today when I stumbled across this. I had a moment of doubt and thought, well, maybe she’s always been that thin. So I looked her up. Nope. It seems she has lost a significant amount of weight, but would calling her names really get her on the road to fixing it, or would it just make her feel even worse about herself, which is at the root of these kinds of issues? Why do we feel better insulting people like this? Does it really help, or does it rather say something about us?
Jesus, was that Kate Bosworth pic Photoshopped? That is horrific. She looks like a mummy.
Calling a spade a spade doesn’t have to be mean-spirited. If that picture reflects how she actually looks, then to my eyes (as a life-long skinny girl), yes, she needs some help with her weight management. If there are underlying issues, then great, deal with those too.
If I saw an ultra-thin stick figure of a stranger out in public, I might quietly suggest to my friend that we buy her a burger, but I would never say anything to her. If it was a friend, then hell yes I would say something. I have seen friends die of diseases that they never admitted they had, and it truly sucks.
But I do not understand the boorish male responses you describe, about her somehow deserving to be abused because she might be abusing herself. Pathetic.
that picture of skinny Kate Bosworth isn’t real.
What’s the point of making models look even skinnier? Half of them already look like their bodies should collapse under their own weight. I hate watching fashion shows for that reason.
Good to know. It makes me feel better for her, to think that she, specifically, doesn’t have a problem, but my link to her was purely to incite a gut reaction from folks to see if I could figure out why some felt is was okay to mock or ridicule. The fact is that there are girls out there who are anorexic or bulimic, and are percieved as disposable. I just wonder why they are so easily dismissed.
Good for Kate, though. She’s a pretty girl. I’d hate to see her have those kinds of issues.
Good detective work on that, SurrenderDorothy. Those pictures look as real as any cadaverous person I’ve ever seen. Amazing how how much talent is out there. Now if they can only use their powers for GOOD!
I am sometimes amazed by the Photoshop talent out there. The fake photos on the right where the anorexic models have had weight added through the magic of Photoshop look very real! I guess the Photoshoppers mostly just need to airbrush out all the protruding ribs and then add some fake width and meat to their arms and legs. Good work.
Seriously though, in most of those the women looked anorexic in BOTH photos.
I also thought it was kind of funny that the nipple on the “before” photo of Lindsey Lohan was “black-boxed”, but the nipple on the skinny version was not!
Oh. I guess it’s not Lindsey Lohan. It’s the photos just before that of the topless woman bending over on a beach.
In my opinion, thinner women look best in clothes, and meatier women out of them.
I don’t think it’s ever okay to ridicule, especially when the condition being ridiculed exists because the person already feels ugly, worthless, fat, or whatever. “Tough love” my ass. Ridicule is not constructive no matter how it’s couched. It only serves to reaffirm what they already think about themselves and how they believe others think of them. This does exactly the opposite of what those morons claim they are trying to do by their moronic statements. You want to give someone tough love? Stage an intervention. Admit them to a clinic that specializes in anorexia. Do something constructive and helpful, not destructive and hurtful. The latter only becomes telling of the nature of the poster, not the condition of the OP.
Ridicule does nothing helpful. When I weighed 334, trust me. I knew it. All the names in the world weren’t going to inspire me.
That being said, I find mocking anyone about their weight - whether obese or anorexic - is an easy target and shockingly snotty.
VCNJ~
She may not be that skinny, but Kate Bosworth has had a marked weight loss. She looked so healthy in Blue Crush. But as Veuve mentioned, insults for any reason aren’t helpful.
Tough love in any situation should be a last resort and should be administered only to a person you actually know. Ridicule and mockery of a stranger, especially one you don’t even know directly, is just cruel.
Anorexia scares people. They don’t know how to deal with it.
It’s strange in that it’s very visibly and seriously dangerous and it takes over your body and can be ultimately fatal, but it’s not physically curable.
Cancer, kidney disease, etc. are all scientifically curable. It’s not the patient’s fault and it’s a lot less her decision to get better than an anorexic. If she wants to get better, they give her medicine and the medicine does its job.
Depression, OCD, etc. can be fatal through suicide but that’s generally one catastrophic event rather than an excruciating slow train of hospital visits and sick days and dinnertime screaming matches and calls from teachers and bosses and friends- “come get her. she passed out again.”
Whereas with anorexia, someone loses weight and starts getting sicker and thinner… her body shuts down. Her heart rate slows. Her bones get brittle, she can’t digest food properly, she’s tired all the time… and if you send her to the hospital, they can only do so much. They can tube her and treat some of her physical problems and try their hand at the anorexia itself, but she could still just get worse. And it confuses people. I mean- hell, if you know you can help yourself to get better just by doing something as simple as eating, then why not do it?
also, there are a lot of simplistic messages out there. People have heard that anorexia is where people starve themselves to be skinny. Starving yourself to be skinny is stupid. Pretty much any clear-cut reason people use just doesn’t make enough sense without the added, “you’ve got to be an idiot or lazy to not just find another way” Is it for control? then why not get a pet rodent or a submissive boyfriend? Is it to be cool or so boys will like you? try out for the cheerleading squad and dye your hair blonde. Then when you go “too far” it becomes even more confusing- I mean, once you hit 75 lb can you really think you’re not thin yet? don’t you realize that you look like a freak and that’s not going to make you popular and no boy will ever love you? Can’t you see that you don’t look like an ideal ballerina or movie star or runway model and just stop losing weight? You can’t? well… everyone else can, so you must be a few crayons short.