Eating? Disorder?

Whenever I feel like starving myself I look at 1 cup of oatmeal with brown sugar.doc

This is a fascinating essay written by a model who occasionally writes on Jezebel (anonymously) about how screwy the modeling/high fashion world is from the inside. In this episode, she talks about how going to Paris Fashion Week inspires her to a new level of disordered eating (which, luckily, she doesn't seem to have really succumbed to). "1 cup of oatmeal with brown sugar.doc" is a document analyzing her favorite recipes for calorie content, documenting the details of various regimens and diets she tried, and recording bizarre calorie-burning tips, such as "Drinking COLD water burns extra cals bc your body must use energy to bring the water up to body temp."

This all sounds like standard starving-model crap, but then you realize she sounds totally reasonable and relatively well adjusted. I mean, living with these impossible, unattainable, and frankly unattractive (angular, bony, shriveled) ideals paraded constantly, who doesn't head for the cold tap to down some cold water to kill appetite and burn a couple calories while you're at it? And add ice.

For the record, I have a relatively healthy body image - I don't have what you'd refer to as body dysmorphia and I'm pretty realistic about the difficulties of reconciling wanting to wear a size 8 (or 6, or 4) with being six feet tall and REALLY liking butter. But all the same, it's hard to not want to be skinny and wear Prada or Naeem Khan or whoever else...