Women’s social issues have been treated in programs geared towards teens for ages. Remember when DJ Tanner went on a crash diet so she could look good in a bathing suit, and then passed out on a stairclimber?

On Saved by the Bell, Elizabeth Berkley gained pre-Showgirls notoriety, for the famous Jessie Spano Caffeine Pill Breakdown (I’m so excited! I’m so scared!). Of course, Full House and SBTB were heart-warming sitcoms, where everyone learns their lesson in the end, and move away from their self-destructive behavior, never to mention anorexia, bullimia, or drug abuse ever again.

The breakout Canadian teen sensation, Degrassi, which airs in the US on The N network, covers a variety of teen issues, without the cavity-inducing sugary sweetness of the stuff we grew up on. Among the kids who dabble in drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, and bi-polar disorder, Degrassi introduced the world to Ellie Nash, who is a cutter.

I’m too old for Degrassi, but I don’t care. I’m pretty much obsessed with it. The best part about the show is that it doesn’t sweep the issues under the rug at the end of each 22-minute episode. And because the writers have the balls to “Go There.” I mean, come on: we all know the caffeine-pill incident was a stand-in for a harder drug, like speed or something, but hard drugs don’t exist at Bayside High.

I remember when the cutting craze swept my middle school. I have no idea who started it, or why it caught on, but at my school, cutting was the iPhone of the late 90′s. Read More »

Here’s a shocker: BBC News reports that young girls face increasing pressure to become sexualized at younger ages, and besides becoming sluttier and sluttier, they also give into self-destructive habits to cope with social stress.

My first thought? Oh, no! Save the children. My second thought? Ummm, obvi?

When I was young, my role models were Barbie and Kelly Kapowski. Barbie had an impossible waist paired with magic tits, and Kelly Kapowski had cheated on Zack Morris with college boy Jeff, her boss at the Max. Parents today are concerned that the Bratz dolls negatively influence girls’ body images. I think they look like ghetto skanks with big heads, myself. But I suppose if they are inspiring young girls to seek a ghetto-skank look, there is cause for concern.

But I digress. BBC reports that girls are suffering from various social anxieties: two in five girls studied knew someone who had self-harmed; two in five knew someone who had panic attacks; and one in three knew someone with an eating disorder.

These problems suck; I know, I’ve dealt with all of them. I went through a brief bout of anorexia when I was thirteen, dropping to 104 pounds on a 5’7” frame. When I started eating again after an intervention, knives and razors became my friends. Read More »

Every college girl has been alerted to the fact that they should detag incriminating pictures or take down inappropriate quotes from online profiles because it could harm the status of a future internship, job, or even college application. That’s all common sense at this point.

But now, common problems for young females such as eating disorders are being used as evidence by an insurance company to not insure them. An article in the New Jersey Law Journal details this surprising case.

Apparently certain girls were denied health insurance by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield because of online writings and posts pointing to “emotional” causes of disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. Why would this matter whether it was emotionally or biologically based? Here’s the catch:

The insurer is only required to pay for illnesses that are biologically based, so they are attempting to prove through facebook, myspace, etc. that the reasons behind them are purely emotional.

The article goes on to say that, “Judge Patty Shwartz ordered the plaintiffs to turn over by Jan. 15 the children’s e-mails, diaries and other writings about their “eating disorders or manifestations/symptoms thereof, and related health conditions” that had been “shared with others, including entries on Web sites such as ‘Facebook’ or ‘MySpace.’” Read More »

I just found out about this website, and I can’t tell if it’s the worst thing ever or the best thing since sliced, carb-free bread.

The Skinny Website.

A site dedicated to our obsession with celebrities and their weight. All things “skinny” – what celebs are eating, how much of a cow they look like and many, many blogs that keep track of how much weight our favorite famous gals are putting off and taking on.

Yea, sure, it’s a COMPLETELY superficial website, COMPLETELY representative of everything wrong with our image-consumed society, but for some reason, I’m excited about this discovery. I mean, I can go anywhere to see Ashlee Simpson post-shopping, (boring) but now I can get the “skinny” on what she’s digesting! Read More »

There are a few things I could’ve done without in last night’s Nip/Tuck episode:

a) A guest appearance by Rosie O’Donnell. Gross.

b) Marshmallow fluff. Gross.

c) The ass bandit story line. Where in god’s name did the producers come up with this one? (However, Liz’s comment about “digitally dittling” the victims was pretty damn funny.)

Anyway, on to the good stuff…eating disorders.

As someone who very recently wrote a blog about “thinspiration,” I was especially intrigued by the role it played last night. Naughty Eden has introduced poor MacNamara’s daughter to the trials and tribulations of being a young girl who’s overly concerned with her weight. Not only does Annie ask Dr. Mac for lipo because her ass is too big (???), but she gets coached by Eden on “ana” and “mia” not to mention which “thinspiration” websites she visits so that she gets thinspired to skinny.

She even goes as far as making Annie practice purging. Good lord this was so f-ed up! Aside from the fact that this is only a TV show, it’s no wonder so many young girls are developing eating disorders with the kind of influence that’s out there. Read More »

“I want to be skinny.”

That thought probably floats through my head a few hundred times a day. And the truth is I’m not overweight. Not even close really. But I just want to be thinner than I am, like 10 pounds thinner.

Do I need to lose weight for health reasons? No.

Am I totally out of shape? Nope.

So what gives? Why do I insist on being so un-accepting of my body?

Probably because I have this innate desire to be perfect, to strive for that unattainable “perfect,” hot celebrity body, that is the result of a) a super intense trainer and nutrition coach, which I will never be able to afford or b) a combination of drugs (no thanks) + an eating disorder.

Now I’ve never had an eating disorder, but I must admit I’ve treaded quite close to the edge with some serious calorie counting, not to mention borderline obsessive exercising. But most recently, since I’m perusing the web a lot (who isn’t?), I’ve stumbled upon the term “thinspiration.”

I’m sure many of you have heard of this. But since I hadn’t yet, I did some more digging, which led me to a TON of anorexia blogs, pro-anorexia websites, insane dieting tactics to avoid eating at all costs, YouTube videos that flash images of reallllly skinny girls so that they’ll “thinspire” you… the list goes on.

At first I was totally shocked and horrified by how mental the girls who create this sh*t are. But then, I became intrigued. Read More »

Everyone knows that the fashion industry can be bitchy, but now there are reports that it actually might be racist.

UK magazine The Independent recently ran an article about the lack of black and minority models on the runway.

Dee Doocey, a former fashion manager who’s currently campaigning for diversity on the catwalk says she can’t remember “being sent a model who wasn’t white,” during her days in the field “I don’t know if it’s racism, or just the fashion industry languishing in the doldrums”, Doocey continues, “but it needs to change. Agencies only seem interested in leggy white blonde girls.”

While none-white people make up about “30 percent” of London’s population, they “don’t even make up 1 percent of the models”, a ratio that sounds like it might have a reflection in America as well.

One managing director at a London agency that specializes in ethnically diverse models illustrated the crux of the problem by explaining her difficulty in getting work for her black models.

“The racism you come across is not underlying, it’s blatant” she reveals, going on to say that “People will say things like ‘Don’t send any more black models’, and one designer even said black people didn’t suit his clothes. And we’re not talking about small designers here; it’s all the big ones.” Read More »

Bulimia and Anorexia are old news. Isn’t it about time for a new type of disorder to grace the covers of our magazines? Well, thanks to a professor at the University of Iowa, girls all over the country now have another potential eating disorder to worry about: Purging Disorder.

Wait, I thought bulimia consisted of purging after eating large amounts of food? So, what’s the difference?

According to news reports, “The disorder is similar to bulimia nervosa in that both syndromes involve eating, then trying to compensate for the calories. What sets the disorders apart is the amount of food consumed and the way people compensate for what they eat. Women with purging disorder eat normal or even small amounts of food and then purge, often by vomiting. Women with bulimia have large, out-of-control binge eating episodes followed by purging, fasting or excessive exercise.”

Still confused? I was too.

Read More »

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In recent weeks the rag mags and bloggers have been speculating that emaciated socialite Nicole Richie is with child. The recovering heroine addict and anorexic tabloid favorite has been seen shopping for baby clothes, avoiding cigarettes, and even staying off the strip. But could this be a result of a pregnancy or just your average lack of protein?

Medically when the body is deprived of protein it becomes bloated, almost fat due to retention of water. As we see in photos form starving third world countries it is a common occurrence when the body suffers from a deficiency or lack of proper nutrition. But this is a Hollywood famine, starving in the finest of all restaurants while stowing a pharmacy away in your Balenciaga. In a world where every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger, we worship a culture of excess, fast food, binges and purges. Some children would even call Richie their idol; magazines promote her look as improved then attack her for being too skinny days later. Although anorexia is a disease it seems somehow unfair that the entire world is starving while America is on a crash diet.

In the fall of 2003 Nicole was arrested for Heroin possession and was sentenced to rehab. She claims that she has always been thin but gained weight while in the facility which would explain her appearance on The Simple Life shortly after. Over a period of three years Richie went from a healthy girl to a woman in the body of a child at 5’2’’ weighting just under 90lbs. Read More »