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The Starvation Syndrome On The Road To Designer Body Salvation

By Sanchita Sharma
The Hindustan Times

Modelling Can be bone-breaking, discovered former Miss
World Yukta Mookhey the hard way. She found that the
near-starvation diet she had adopted to look svelte had
made her bones brittle (medically termed osteoporosis).
Now she's going to town about the vicious fall-out of
dieting, de rigueur in the fash frat. About time too, for
while the West has moved away from cocaine chic and
forced the likes of Calista 'Ally McBeal' Flockhart to
grapple with anorexia nervosa and put on some weight,
Indian models continue to flaunt emaciation.

Malnutrition could well have been the theme of the Lakmé
India Fashion Week, where most models looked starved
instead of glamorous. Given their weight, they probably
were sustenance-deprived. Despite her 5' 10'' frame,
Vidisha Pawate weighed 50 kilos, Diandra Soares stood 5'
9'' and weighed 49 kilos; while Sushma Reddy weighed 50
kilos at 5' 10''. The Body Mass Index (BMI) of all three
is 16, a good 10 kilos below the healthy weight.

''Body weight 15-20 per cent below the desired BMI is
clinically classified as anorexia nervosa, and these
models clearly fall in the category,'' says nutritionist
Ishi Khosla, Director, Centre for Dietary Counselling.
''They project an unhealthy body image which can lead to
immune disorders, osteoporosis, hormone imbalance,
arthritis and infertility,'' she adds. Ironically, the
metabolism of people who eat less gets sluggish and tends
to conserve energy, making them prone to obesity as soon
as they resume a normal diet. ''I've been getting an
increasing number of underweight teens who are being
diagnosed with amenorrhoea -- irregular or scanty periods
that may finally stop -- and infertility,'' says Madhu
Roy, senior consultant, gynaecology, Apollo Hospitals.

''So much has been made about being thin that most people
don't know when to stop starving themselves,'' says
Shikha Khanna, senior dietician at Ram Manohar Lohia
Hospital. ''BMI is the best way to know how much weight
you need to lose, taking care not to go under the 18.5
watermark,'' she adds.

After the International Journal of Obesity said that
seven out of 10 Playboy centrespread girls were
underweight, health bodies in the US went on an
information overdrive that made anorexia unfashionable.
''We don't learn from other people's mistakes,''
complains Khosla. Given the malnourished body image our
models continue to flaunt, health will continue to be
sacrificed for a cosmetic edge, at least for some time.

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http://www.hindustantimes.com

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