The Real Skinny on the Real Skinny

Ana Carolina Reston Macan, the Brazillian fashion model who died from anorexia-related complications in 2006; the ultra-slim Nicole Richie, photographed in 2006; and the American singer Karen Carpenter, who died from anorexia-related heart failure in 1983 at the age of 33

Of course, yearning to be skinny is hardly a new obsession. The phrase, “You Can’t be Too Rich or Too Thin” has been attributed to everyone from Babe Paley to the Dutchess of Windsor, and has come to be personified by a kind of ultra-slender American socialite. (Think Nan Kempner and Gloria Vanderbilt, for starters.) Yet while it’s fair to say that women bear the brunt of this fixation, it’s no longer a gendered issue. A recent story in New York magazine revealed the shifting norms in body image for men as indicated by mannequins: in 1967, a male mannequin sported a 33 inch waist, whereas this year’s standard “homme nouveau” clocks in at only 27 inches. (Odder still, the average waist size of a real American man in 2006 was 39.7 inches.) Not surprisingly, eating disorders — classically the purview of the teenage girl — are significantly on the rise for men.

But the really scary part of the real skinny lies in its mind-bending advocacy efforts. Anorexia evangelists — and yes, they’re out there — promote their cause on “pro-ana” websites offering tips on fooling your parents and your doctors and your friends. Mercifully, there are also resources by and for parents as well as several well-established residential programs for treatment. The good news is, there is more transparency — more statistics to terrify and specialists to treat — than there used to be. The bad news is, anorexia persists because self-image is desperately personal, deeply psychological and, let’s face it, just wickedly hard to change. Which doesn’t mean we should stop trying. 

On the contrary: we should try harder.

Several years ago, the American photographer Lauren Greenfield published a book and shot a documentary for HBO that profiled four extreme cases of self-starvation. It was a brilliant, and in many ways a daring move: brutal, honest, unflinchingly bare in its depiction of what really goes on in the minds and the lives of those who suffer with eating disorders. But it’s not enough. As we continue to debate the degree to which the media reinforces the misguided idea that skeletal is beautiful, consider that — based on theoretical body fat percentages — if today’s mannequins were actual human women, they would probably cease to menstruate. Consider that African American girls are 50% more likely to be bulimic than girls who are white. Consider the fact that one-fifth of those suffering from anorexia will, if untreated, die from complications related to their eating disorder, and ask yourself: is less really ever more?