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Published on October 14, 2007

Cat says 

Wallis simpson, the American-born Duchess of Windsor, once said "you can never be too rich or too thin". The phrase has gone down in legend, and been adopted as a motto by most ambitious young girls these days. I have just returned from a visit to Europe - over there, most teenage girls' dream is to become the next Kate Moss, and the first step of their journey is getting down to size zero. 

That's not so difficult if you are naturally small-boned and slim - most young girls in Thailand for instance are a size zero without even trying. But for those over 5 feet 8 inches tall and Caucasian, it's pretty tough to reach size zero without starving yourself to death.

But why does everyone think being thin is attractive? I suppose we live in a society that tells us that the ideal woman's body is thin, even though very few women actually fit this model. It's hard for us to escape these messages and images, and, inevitably, it's not long before they start shaping our ideas of our own bodies. The media like to suggest we can completely control our own body size and achieve the ideal thinness they hold up, but in fact, to a certain extent the size and shape of our bodies are as genetically determined as skin and eye colour.

It's a common myth that eating disorders only effect females. In fact men are just as likely to be affected, especially in this celebrity-driven world. Just look at how many men have plastic surgery these days. There isn't a male equivalent of Kate Moss, but I am sure most are quite happy to have the body of Brad Pitt or George Clooney.   

It's normal for all of us to have days when we don't feel confident with our bodies, but certain people have these feelings more often than others. It can become an obsession for some. These feelings can lead to low self-esteem and even eating disorders. Two common eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia. People who are anorexic starve themselves, and people who are bulimic binge and purge. In their severer forms these diseases can lead to death. The root of the problem is most likely a deeper emotional issue, and it's important that this be treated if the eating disorder is to be cured.

Up until recently most people thought of eating disorders as a Western disease. It has also been said that women living in developing countries are less likely to develop eating disorders. This fails to take into account the Asian middle class who, more in touch with Western values, are more likely to assimilate and identify with Western conventions of beauty.

Therefore, I believe eating disorders don't discriminate: Anyone of any race or culture with any social values and beliefs can be affected.

Each of us is an individual with our own natural shape and body type: There is little point in starving yourself in order to look like a model in a magazine.

It's far more important to live a healthier lifestyle - if you want to loose weight, try exercising regularly, and eating a nutritious diet. One of my girl friends who was a bit overweight recently lost seven kilos on a Weight Watchers programme. She now exercises daily and eats healthily in order to maintain her current weight.

With the media constantly promoting size-zero models, it's hard for the younger generation to believe you don't have to be stick-thin to be beautiful. But remember: Marilyn Monroe was one of the greatest beauties of last century, and she had a full and curvaceous body!

Nat says

 T his is an experiment for all the men out there.                                                                                 How tall are you? No, I mean, how tall are you, really. It is a well-known fact that women lie about their age and weight and men lie about their height and shoe size.  Take your height in metres and multiply that number by itself. Then use it to divide your weight.

For example, I weigh 94 kilograms. I am 1.77 metres tall (really, I am). So 1.77 squared is 3.1329. Now I take 94, divide it by 3.1329 and I get approximately 0.32. So 32 is my Body Mass Index, or BMI.

Much has been made of Body Mass Index since models with BMIs of less than 18 were banned at last year's Madrid Fashion Week. What a great publicity stunt. All of a sudden, a minor blip on the world's fashion calendar became headline news. Everybody was talking about how models are getting too thin and how women need to be given positive, realistic ideals of beauty. And Body Mass Index was the gauge by which thinness was measured.

People are still talking about BMI today, long after everyone has forgotten about Madrid Fashion Week 2006.

So what is a normal BMI?

Well, according to the US National Institute of Health, anyone with a BMI below 18.5 is underweight. A BMI from 18.5 to 24.9 is normal. 25 to 29.9 is overweight and anyone with a BMI above 30 is obese.

So that's right, ladies and gentlemen: to my horror, I have found out that, with a BMI of 32, I am considered obese.

But I'm not obese. Okay, I admit I am fat, but I'm also quite muscular. BMI, for men, does not take into account those of us who grew up with Arnold Schwarzenegger as an ideal rather than Jude Law.

As women having been bemoaning for years, the fine line between fat and thin often has more to do with fashion than with a genuine standard for good health.

The global trend towards thinness isn't just affecting women - with greater and greater frequency, it's affecting men, too. Last year, the actor Dennis Quaid went public with his battle with anorexia nervosa.  There have been rumours that other actors, Billy Bob Thornton among them, also suffer from it.

Thanks to the frankness of men like Quaid, however, there is now more attention given to men's eating disorders that result from the promotion of an underweight ideal. 

But who would ever have thought that a body as good as Dennis Quaid's was actually the result of an eating disorder? I mean, anyone who's seen just about any of his films has probably seen him naked. Quaid didn't look too skinny to me. He just looked like he had great muscle definition. You know, like Arnie but thinner.

I've decided that I just want to be healthy. I don't care if everyone is meant to be thin. I'll take the muscle definition without the eating disorder.

But what is healthy? At my last general check-up I was told that my liver function is starting to decline because I'm overweight. That means I should lose about 20 kilos while I'm still in my 40s and it's still relatively easy. Easy? How can losing 20 kilos be easy?

Whatever happened to the good old days when men could be as fat and ugly as they wanted as long as they were also rich? Believe me, I have more chance of being a dot.com millionaire or whatever it is that makes money nowadays than I have of getting my Body Mass Index down below 25.

Want an opinion on something? Cat and Nat can be contacted at

NnaSWild@aol.com.