Too many still dying to be thin

IT'S a clever, complicated and deadly condition, which is indiscriminate in age and gender.

Quietly lurking around for decades, it's been silently picking out the weak, so much so that the depressive illness strikes down one in every 100 people and boasts a savage mortality rate of 10-15 per cent. And worryingly, it's now reaching epidemic proportions in Scotland, with the number of people suffering having almost trebled since 1999. The condition is anorexia - and it appears more and more of us are dying to be thin.

Eating disorders now affect an estimated 80,000 people in Scotland, but most worryingly the sufferers are getting younger and younger, with girls as young as 11 being admitted to local hospitals. And this seems to be the tip of the iceberg, with a further estimated 400 also being treated by their GPs, and many more going undiagnosed.

A new survey by teen magazine, Bliss, found a horrifying 92 percent of teenage girls are dissatisfied with the way they look in comparison with the airbrushed ideals they're drip fed all the time.

And therein lies the problem. We live in a celebrity-driven world. If you want to successfully sell anything, get a celebrity to promote it. The product is immaterial - just get the right face or shape to promote it and you're on to a winner.

It's difficult to flick through any magazine, tabloid newspaper or watch any TV programme without being confronted with images of certain "stars" with jutting collarbones and pointy pelvic bones, munching on lettuce leaves, modelling the latest size zero designer gown or on the arm of some muscle-bound hunk.

While many of us see it for what it is and refuse to get sucked into the size zero culture, for those less fortunate - the young, the naive, the vulnerable - skinniness, for some reason, seems to equate to success, or at the very least happiness.

While images of size zero celebrities will not make any young person anorexic, let's face it, being bombarded constantly with such images can motivate someone who already has a problem. So too can fashion labels, such as Asda's high-fashion, catwalk-inspired G-21 collection, which plans to stock size zero clothing (the equivalent of a UK size four).

With a waist measurement of just 22 inches - that of an eight-year-old girl - it's hardly representative of an average UK woman or teenager. But with 194 stores set to stock the diminutive garments, it's clear there's an acceptance of this size, which means there will undoubtedly be a demand to be that size too.

And, with the recent decision not to have an outright ban on the use of models with a Body Mass Index of less than 18 at this month's London Fashion Week, the notion that very thin equals beautiful will undoubtedly become more entrenched in the heads of more young girls.

Ultra-thin celebrities and catwalk models, whether they like it or not, are role models for countless girls. They are in the public eye, after all. But eating disorders are not a new problem. And therefore the celebrities can't take all the blame.

I'll never forget the day my now teenage cousin, who was just eight at the time, secretly informed me she was on a diet after the girls at school told her she was fat, just as I had been told when I was in primary school. And so she refused to eat snacks and picked at her dinner for days, just like I did.

We were only children - and relatively slim ones at that. We should have been thinking about dolls and birthday parties and playing outside with friends. Not about losing weight.

I was horrified and devastated for her. Because I knew that what she was told will most likely stay with her for the rest of her life and affect her eating in some way or another - as it does for so many others.

For my cousin and me, there was no celebrity to blame, no skinny starlet to idolise. It came down to peer pressure, school playground bullying and ignorance on our parts. If they'd hit us or ignored us, we would have seen it for what it was. But because it got us where it hurt we believed them and fell for it.

So while celebrities and the media play a role in continuing our international obsession with weight, what is really clear is that healthy lifestyles and healthy attitudes need to be established as early as possible to ensure it doesn't start in the first place. Prevention rather than cure.

And this is also true of childhood obesity, one of the UK's fastest growing problems. A third of 12-year-olds in Scotland are overweight, and a fifth are obese. While some kids starve themselves into an early grave, others slowly eat their way into one. And they don't even know it.

Obesity sadly all too often begins in childhood, where kids who know no better learn from their parents and bad eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle are formed. This ultimately sets them up for a lifetime of health complaints. And it becomes a vicious cycle with negative emotions resulting from the weight fuelling the obesity even more. Education is therefore vital.

It's long been acknowledged we are what we eat. Never has such importance been placed on what we put on our plate - and what we don't. But it's all about striking a balance, knowing right from wrong in the food department, and seeing the bigger picture. That of life.

Then maybe one day, campaigns such as Eating Disorder Awareness Week, which runs until February 11, will have done their job and will cease to exist.

• For more information on eating disorders visit www.edauk.com or telephone [phone]. Under-18s can telephone [phone] or text 07977-493 345.