Super Skinny Me
Like I mentioned, I was able to watch the documentary Super Skinny Me last night and all I can say is - whoa.
For those of you who didn't catch it, watch this clip first and then come on back.
Basically, the documentary covers two British journalists, Kate and Louise, who, playing off of Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, try a slew of weight loss tactics to see if they can get to a "Size 0" (which, I believe, is a UK Size 0, or a US Size 4.) Both women are of a healthy weight before they embark on their medically supervised journey, which included - among other things - the Master Cleanse Diet (lemonade, cayenne pepper, maple syrup and water - that's actually ground-up lemon rind you see Kate eating in the clip); protein shakes, colonics; excessive exercise; watercress soup; wrapping themselves in Saran Wrap and running in a sauna; and more. The result: A difficult-to-watch but rubberneck-inducing hour of witnessing two women basically aiming to give themselves an eating disorder.
Kate, seen here, seemed to get sucked into the ED mentality much more easily than Louise. By the end of the first two weeks, she'd dropped a whopping 14 pounds. She opts for more colonics than recommended and starts "playing around" with laxatives. At a dinner party (where she's eating only raw foods while her friends indulge in foie gras), one woman compliments her on how good she looks. Sound familar? This happens in our culture all the time - lose a few pounds and the compliments just keep coming, fueling the fire. This can be motivating for someone losing weight in a heathy fashion but a disorder person, it wreaks mental havoc. Kate admits that "after having the shit sucked out of [her] for a week,...food becomes fraught with problems” and “I’ve become quite the anorexic now.”
Louise, on the other hand, seems to be able to keep a clear eye on the absurdity of it all. She loses 7.5 lbs in the first two weeks by workng out with a trainer and choking down nasty-looking watercress soup (if it worked for Elizabeth Hurley...) As Louise begins to lose weight, she notices her curves diminishing. She's not happy. “I don’t feel womanly," she tells the camera. "I was probably this thin when I was 18. Ben (her boyfriend), when he cuddles me, he can feel my rib cage and my back and goes ‘Blah!’” Louise gets a rash on her neck as a result of nutritional deficiencies and the severe stress of the diet (I guess gulping nothing but protein shakes while devoting two hours to exercise a day will do that.) And even though her pants size is plummeting - the goal of this whole project, after all - she somehow manages to keep her priorities straight. At one point, she visits some disturbing pro-ana websites and is driven to tears by the thought of what certain women will do to themselves to attain a certain idealized goal.
Essentially, the extreme dieting disrupts both women's lives - their jobs, their socializing, their relationships. They become chronically fatigued and obsessed with the number on the scale. They think about sweets all the time, have to bring special food with them wherever they go, report feeling angry and miserable. These sentiments are echoed by a 15-year-old, inpatient anorexia sufferer, who talks with Louise about her iillness, saying that when she looks at pictures of (a pre-pregnancy) Nicole Ritchie, "it feels unfair that I have to put on weight..but they (celebs) can be thin."
With just one week to go, Kate checks in with her doctor who, upon learning she has begun purging, sends her to an ED specialist. Remember, this was a woman who did not have an eating disorder just weeks ago. As it turns out, this whole experiment has triggered a sort of "pre-eating disorder." Kate had gone through some unfortunate weight and self-esteem issues when younger and the sudden dieting retriggered her anxiety. thankfully, the doctor instructs her to discontinue the project, and she complies.
At the end, Louise throws a party for her friends to see how many sizes she’s dropped. The whole scene was actually quiet disturbing, even though I do believe she stayed relatively sane. Originally a UK Size 12, she tried on her pre-Super Skinny Me jeans and they hang off of her. Everyone Oohs and Ahs. She goes behind a little folded dressing door and begins trying on pants, each time a bit smaller, each time emerging to show her newly shruken frame to the partygoers. Eventually she gets into Size 00 (US Size 2). The voiceover explains that a size this small is meant to fit a six-year-old. She zips them up and looks just awful - like a litle doll or something. There is a great big smile on her face. She has attained her goal. But luckily, she wastes no time in whipping those suckers off and asking for champagne and cake. “I’d rather be comfy in my size 10s oir 12s and have a glass of wine or fish and chips," she says - and I believe she means it. She has gone from 129 lbs to 115 lbs in four weeks.
Two weeks later, the weight is quickly returning to both journalists' bodies. They have been in starvation mode, after all, and now that food is being reintroduced, their systems are grabbing onto anything they can. Lousie is happy about it - "Dieting is such a miserable world” - but I'm not fully convinced Kate is on the road to a speedy recovery.
These women risked their lives to participate in a jaw-dropping social commentary on how women view food and weight. Of course, they are adults and I'm sure proper consent was obtained prior to starting. I'm also sure neither of them thought they'd become someone who actually clapped when two pounds of poop was flushed out of them after a colonic. I'm glad I watched the show because it proved to me how badly I NEVER want to go back to that kind of mentality. But I will say, it was very difficult to watch and I can see how, like the HBO documentary THIN it could be triggering for others. If you have the chance, I would suggest watching it so you can see a well-painted portrait of just how quickly a mental disorder-type mindset can take hold.
If you saw Super Skinny Me, please do leave your thoughts here.
Comments
I didn't get to see it b/c I don't get this channel but I really REALLY want to see it. Any idea if it's online anywhere so I can watch it?
I watched it last night with an open mind.I hadn't seen Super Size Me so I didn't really have anything to go by.As the program advanced, I was,however,reminded of a conversation I had with one of my friends a few months earlier.We were talking about how we work out habitually, eat healthy (for the most part :-P its hard when you're a college student),surround ourselves with people who make us happy and yet we are still dissatisfied with our bodies.We both agreed,half-joking/half-serious,that life would be better if only we had the will power to not eat (awful, I know!).I really underestimated the mental side effects of an eating disorder,I only saw it as a quick way to lose a few pounds.I know you,Leslie,know what it is like to go through that.Watching SSM really did open my eyes to how foolish so many of us are when it comes to our own bodies.Fortunately,I have never had to suffer from an eating disorder to figure that out.I do really hope anyone who gets the chance will watch SSM. It is definitely enlightening!
For me, it was so hard to watch Kate. Toward the beginning when she was weighing in at the retreat, she couldn't even look at the scale, and then when she did and she didn't lose as much weight as she wanted, she basically bursts into tears. It was hard to watch, because I've so been there! I don't consider myself to have disordered thinking about eating, but I related to Kate a lot, which made me realize how easy it would be to go from health conscious to health obsessed.
Does anyone else have thoughts on Kate being single but Louise having a boyfriend? I thought, "It must be nice to have someone you love tell you you're pretty no matter what you look like." But I imagine it would be harder for Kate, that she might be seeking some external validation by losing weight.
Anyway, awesome documentary. Thanks for tipping me off to it, Leslie!
There were so many times when Kate looked like she was about to cry, she just broke my heart. So did Louise, when she was talking about those pro-ana websites, and talking to that young girl. And then when she was talking about how she couldn't open the door at work because it was too heavy, and she seemed so out of it, it was scary!
I remember seeing a pair of size 0 jeans at The Gap (in L.A., of course) and wondering how the he** ANYONE could fit into those things!
I havent' seen this yet (my friend recorded it for me but I have to wait until her family leaves in a week before I can go over and watch it) but I've been reading about it on the net. Have you guys checked out some of the forums talking about this?? MOST of the commenters are saying how they want to try it and how Kate and Louise look so much better in their "afters". Sheesh.
Jamie - my friends and I have pretty much the exact same conversation as you and your friends. Weird. Scary.
Good point Nikki about the boyfriend/support issue.
And yes, it's 2:45 in the morning and I'm awake... thanks for keeping me company Leslie!
Haven't seen the documentary yet, but it was also much touted in the British media. Just one brief note--British sizes are actually cut smaller than US sizes, so a US 8 is a UK 12, a US 4 is a UK 8, and so on. The idea of trying to get down to a UK 0 is truly terrifying and--for anyone other than an early Kate Moss--just about impossible!
I remember seeing a pair of size 0 jeans at The Gap (in L.A., of course) and wondering how the he** ANYONE could fit into those things!
In this shocking documentary about the extreme lengths some women will go to lose weight, two average-sized British journalists, Louise Burke and Kate Spicer, accept a challenge to whittle themselves down to a size zero within 5 weeks.
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Patric
http://themastercleanse.org/the-lemonade-diet
http://themastercleanse.org/the-lemonade-diet
