This article came from Reveal Magazine, and I just had to put it out there for you all to see!!! How can people possibly say that the media plays no part in disordered eating? Here is proof that pictures of skinny stars are making girls and boys alike feel like they need to be better which leads them needing to be thinner!
Rachael Johnston’s fixation on a photo of Victoria Beckham nearly killed her. Here, she tells REVEAL how she finally beat her four- year battle with Anorexia.
Looking at the pictures taken two weeks ago on my 18th birthday, I can barely believe the happy, relaxed girl beaming away in the pretty red dress is me. Just six months ago, I’d have been horrified that the size 10 frock i’d picked out in New look for the occasion fitted like a dream. Back then, still firmly in the grip of anorexia nervosa, even size six clothes swamped my frame, and I was looking to a very different photograph for encouragement.
The shot (in magazine has photo of Victoria Beckham in white dress with no straps and very short showing off her legs and collarbones) of Victoria Beckham was my “thinspiration”. Whenever my resolve weakened, or doctors tried to persuade me to eat, I’d stare at if for hours – picturing my body with those jutting collarbones and thin limbs.
I’m not saying for a second that Victoria has ever suffered from an eating disorder, and i’m sure she’d be horrified if she knew pictures of her had spurred me to carry on starving myself. But for more than four years, I kept the picture, with my own face stuck over hers, hidden inside my wardrobe and then in my hospital locker – a reminder that if I ever wanted my body to be as skinny as hers, Anorexia was too powerful an ally to let go.
It all began with a New Year’s resolution in 2005 to get slim. At 8st 7lb, I wasn’t fat, but I was still targeted by bullies at schoolf for being overweight. My goal was simple – I wanted to be skeletal, and disappear from their sights. Teachers first noticed my eating habits had changed on a school trip to Belgium that year, when I got through each day on just a KitKat and some juice. When I got back, my mum, lynne, panicked and started weighing me weekly to see if I was losing weight. I was, rapidly, so she took me to the GP. I fobbed her off by telling her how much the death of my freat-gran and the pressure of GCSE’s was affecting me, but my eating habits became more irregular.
I stuck to 800 calories a day, sucking ice cubes and chewing gum to suppress my appetite. My weight fell dangerously low, to 6st 7lb, but it was just enough to keep me out of hospital. I was exhauted, but I fell in love with feeling hungry, fasting for days at a time and doing 1,000 sit-ups alone in my room to lose as much weight as possible.
I began visiting pro-anorexic websites, where other girls swapped tips on the best “thinspiration” pictures, or how to make yourself sick after meals. After one vomiting sessions, Dad found me unconscious on the bathroom floor, and called an ambulance. I was taken to Warrington Hospital, where I stayed for three months after mum refused to take me home. I know now she was just desperate for me to get better, but I screamed as she walked away, and I was already too good at being anorexic to gain weight.
I stuffed meals into shampoo bottles, and refused to let even water pass my lips. Doctors resorted to feeding me through a nasal tube into my stomach. Eventually, I was sent home to be treated as an outpatient but 12-day fast ended with me being rushed into hospital, weighing 5st 13lbs and wearing clothes for an 11-year old. Somehow, in between all the purging and starving, I took and passed 12 GCSEs in hospital, before spending 18 months in an eating disorder unit, where I gained 22lbs. I was so disgusted with myself that, for days after I was discharged in May 2008, I took a paracetamol overdoes. I wound back in the unit until January, but again, when I was released, I made two more impulsive attempts at overdosing, which very nearly succeeded.
That was my lowest point. I ended up on an adult mental health ward, where I’d lie awake listening to patients’ screams. I knew I didnt want this to be my future, but I struggled to make real changes until, in May, I was given overnight leave to attend my sixth form cllege’s year photo. Seeing my friends getting ready for university and loving life, I saw how badly I’d fallen behind. That night I went home and poured my heart out to mum, promising to gain weight and get better.
That’s what I’m doing now. I still have moments when I struggle with food, and, at 7st, I’m still 12lb shy of my target weight, but i’ve taken down the picture of Posh, and I’m taking it one day at a time. I attend a Liverpool support group my mum now works for, and they’ve organised an eating disorder awareness conference next month to spread the message that they can be beaten.
Until now, my own disorder has been a secret, but i’ve decided to speak out so that other sufferers realise help is out there, if they can find the strength to ask for it. When anorexia has been your only friend for so long, breaking free seems like a terrifying step, but its one i’m so glad I made.
Next month, I’m going to start studying for my A-levels, and for the first time in five years, I feel like i’ve got my future back.
THE EATING DISORDER CONFERENCE TAKE PLACE AT LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY ON 7TH SEPTEMBER. FOR DETAILS, VISIT b-eat.co.uk or ljmu.ac.uk
TS
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