So You Want To Be Hollywood Skinny?

How the eighteen-year-old went from this: To this: .....In one glorious summer of perfection. When the school year was finally over, Daphne Stone couldn't help fearing the next three summer months. Her friends practically lived at the beach, spending long, glorious afternoons in tiny bikinis, swimming, water-skiing and tanning. So why was she fearing this idyllic existence? She was, by her own admission, quite chubby and had been most of her life. A classic pear shaped body type, she was cursed with a fairly small upper body, complete with depressingly small breasts and a substantially larger bottom half. Daphne cringed everytime she looked at herself in the mirror and lamented her size four upper body and size twelve lower half. Finding clothes that fit well was nearly impossible, so while her pals, Cindy Shaw and Chloe Benson flaunted their wonderful thinness, with completely flat stomachs and decent sized chests. Daphne was as pretty as they were, however and that was lik...

Even as a toddler, Sara Jane Moody showed extraordinary signs of being an amazing prodigy. When only three years old, she picked up a hair brush, pretended it was a microphone and belted out "Mamie" for a stunned mother and father. Apparently, Sara Jane had pulled her father's old records, including those by a past favourite, Al Jolson. While her parents, Emily and Ross Moody sat enraptured, their talented child entertained them with a litany of songs, all of them sung on key, with nary a missed lyric. "My God, child!" Ross enthused, clapping vigorously. "When did you learn to do that?? It's amazing!" Sara Jane smiled, finding that she loved the sound of applause even at that tender age. "Daddy, I love this! I want to be a singer. I do!" Emily wasn't so sure if this was a good thing or not. "Wait a minute, honey. She sings one song and suddenly she's a singer? She's just a little girl, barely out of diapers for G...

“A diet site? What on earth would my slender, beautiful daughter be looking at these silly pages anyway?  Can I have the hard drive back now that you know that nobody had a hand in orchestrating her demise.  There are hundreds of reasons why my little girl is underground at fourteen, so why put so much power in this starving stuff. The next thing you’re going to tell me is that Natalie was a cutter and burned her skin with lit cigarettes was another self-destructive behavior she read about on the Internet.” “Was your daughter into self-harm as well?” The police officer was taking notes of everything Susan was telling him. “Lots of kids are doing it. They called the “New Anorexia.” Why, just last week we had a thirteen-year-old doing that and keeping the scars from her family. So I have to ask---“ Susan felt her heart pumping so quickly she feared she was having a heart attack. “How DARE you accuse me of having my daughter slicing her body with razor blades and putting out...

“Well, actually, officer, this is a healthy support system for fellow eating disordered patients. Perhaps it can be seen as driving one another into the throes of a deadly bout of anorexia and/or bulimia, but it’s just not all that bad. In fact, I would have really appreciated a Pro Ana or Pro Ana message board where there was safety in numbers and we would have been able to battle the pervasive loneliness. You must be able to understand that, don’t you?” “But these so-called “Pro Ana” and “Pro Mia” websites have died down substantially from their heyday between  2000-2010.  Practically everyone knows by now that “Pro ana” means Pro (or, for) Ana (Anorexia) and “Pro Mia” (For bulimia). Someone must have investigated and spent an inordinate amount of time coming up with these cute little pet names, not to mention combining  “Inspiration” with “Thin” and coming up with “Thinspiration, or “Thinspo” if you can’t bring yourself to type out the entire word.) A now-defunct...

Too Little Too Late Do you know what some have wrought from your sad and tragic life? Not love, not knowledge, just pain and guilt and strife. I guess one can't grow flowers where only pavement's found. So what the hell am I doing here? You know I'm not that sound. I'm sorry, Tim and just I hate to have to let you know, That atop your precious ashes, not a thing can ever grow. The only explanation I can offer for this sadness, Is that you seem to unleash all kinds of fear and hate and madness. I wish I could regale you with stories that ring true. How much I have wished that I was with you too. You knew ,oh too well, that life was often cruel. That everything we needed wasn't ever learned at school. I know I must live on, even though it seems too much. Those I'd thought were friends, have gotten out of touch. Why didn't you cry harder?  Fear not the reaper, my troubled young friend. And don't think that your earthly death signaled ...

I’m not going to elaborate on anymore of the details of the Amanda Todd case: Her family and friends have had more than they could handle without my re-opening still-healing wounds. But after weeks and weeks of investigating, law enforcement was unable to uncover any traces that Natalie had suffered the same fate as Amanda Todd, which was taking her own life. In fact, when police talked to some of Natalie’s friends, they all assured them that Natty would never do anything “naughty.” The humour was lost on Susan. Natalie was dubbed “Bratty Natty” by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend she’d briefly dated back in grade three when they were both eight. Susan did her best to ignore this less-than-stellar moniker, as impossible as it was. Betty Black was another of Natalie’s pals who professed to be Natty’s best buddy, or BBF, according to Internet jargon. (Susan felt as though she was learning a new language and it was eerily intriguing).  ...

Fire At Their Fingertips: Part One I have been working on a project near and dear to my heart. It's about the powerful and often dangerous world of social media and eating disorders.  It's a toxic combination. We have gone from the Xanga pro ana girls to social media staples like Instagram and Facebook. Yes, there are positive aspects to this relatively new phenomenon, but dig under the surface and it's open season for impressionable young people who spend far too much time online and gather what I call "cybvver-friends." No replacement for the real world, but to young girls and guys, what's written about them can and does have dire consequences. It was January 15 th  2019. It had been two years since her daughter, Natalie’s untimely death. Her distraught mother had more than sufficient time to reflect on just when and where everything went so terribly wrong. Susan Platt, a thirty-eight-year-old mother to now deceased daughter, Natalie, had to face the ...