Skinny

this is the title of book i read recently from Canadian author Ibi Kaslik (http://ibikaslik.net). It's her first book and what an entry she made. it's an extremely riveting account of a early-twentysomething year old university student and her battle with anorexia. The description and characterisation of the voice in her head that tells Giselle Vasco "how fat she is" and "how dare she eat anything" is painful to read at times, but fascinating. It also gets into where her anorexia started.

it's particularly interesting because i'm researching eating disorders for a documentary project i'm working on. it still sometimes amazes me how many individuals grapple with the hell of eating disorders - male and female. studies indicate that girls start dieting as early as eight years old. At eight years old I was busy trying to either beat the crap out of my older brother or trying to wheedle something or another from my parents. It also helped that the culture I grew up in didn't really prize skinny women - it was all about "having a little meat on your bones" so I don't think I really got to be body conscious until after university. And that was thanks to an idiot I dated who probably had an eating disorder now that I think back.

So why amidst all the literature and information available on eating disorders, why something else? I think because being skinny is still the be all and end all of everything. Who remembers Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush? She looked amazing - had a real body, muscles, etc. Now she literally looks like a walking skeleton, in tres fabulous outfits - especially the shoes, but a walking skeleton nonetheless. And because most of us follow the celebrity lifestyle in some way shape or form, the more Hollywood idolises skinny, the more us non-Hollywood residents feel the need to be skinny.

Sheena's Place (www.sheenasplace.org) in their recent fundraiser talked about the increasing numbers of boomer women, approaching midlife, who were suffering from eating disorders. Call it the Desperate Housewife syndrome if you will.

All of this to say, check out Skinny, buy the book, spread the word, support our Canadian artists, and most importantly remember - bodies come in all different sizes and shapes; just think how boring we'd be if we all looked the same - in our little size 1-3 outfits. Then we'd probably be wanting to get fat just to be different...special...because often, that's all we're looking for...ways to be special.