Your Ugliest Paysite Creation Find: Round Two.

[Devilfish]

It started in Italy actually. Milan, capital of fashion and what have you. A famous European photographer set up an add campaign with models who had anorexia and were being treated for it, willingly. This is the most famous picture from that campaign (linked because it can be shocking):

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/images/michaelwalford/2008/07/02/no_anorexia.jpg

These were plastered all over Italy and in every Euopean paper. They never actually outlawed it though. Too tricky. Plus, the campaign happened right before and during a big fashion show in Milan, so a lot of fshion people were thouroughly pissed off. But the European union is working on settings laws about it for all the member countries, last I heard. If that doesn't garantee nothing will be done about it I don't know what will 

[Darqstar]

The thing is that her arms and legs look just fine.  It's her chest that seems to be having the problem.  Her face a bit too, but if the chest was okay, the face wouldn't look bad.

It's like her chest took a mental fit and decided enough was enough, they weren't going to absorb any nutrition.  "Let the rest of the body get fat, I, the neck, shall never be nourished again!"

[misshate]

<snip>

I try to understand it. I've read these sites and the fact that they will die simply doesn't bother these girls. That I understand. I'm a smoker myself and I admit that death isn't what I think about when I light a cigarette. I can't help but think that it's not about beauty at all, that these girls look at those models and use them as an excuse to give themselves over to their self-loathing. The thin = beautiful things seems too convenient. I could be way off, I honestly don't understand it, but it seems to go a lot deeper than simply wanting to be thin.

You're not way off. I can only speak for myself, but for me the eating disorder was a way of life. I've always felt inadequate, like I couldn't cope with anything and wasn't good at anything, like I couldn't live and didn't have any goal, and my life was thus... well, pretty much empty. Anorexia filled that void and gave me a clear objective and a set of rules to follow, to succeed at following. So... yeah, it's about filling the void, for some people. And personally, I believe in the vast majority of cases it's definitely not about 'beauty'.

(Ack, sorry for w/e bad English)

[Devilfish]

Thanks for explaining that, misshate. It does make sense when you put it like that. It's just something I'm really struggling to understand, but your explaination makes sense to me. It explains these sites as well. Helping each other fight that emptiness must feel like a really noble, worthwhile thing to do to these girls.
I do hope you're better now. I wish you all the best in any case.

[Darqstar]

You're not way off. I can only speak for myself, but for me the eating disorder was a way of life. I've always felt inadequate, like I couldn't cope with anything and wasn't good at anything, like I couldn't live and didn't have any goal, and my life was thus... well, pretty much empty. Anorexia filled that void and gave me a clear objective and a set of rules to follow, to succeed at following. So... yeah, it's about filling the void, for some people. And personally, I believe in the vast majority of cases it's definitely not about 'beauty'.

(Ack, sorry for w/e bad English)

Way back when I was in college and anorexia was still a relatively new disorder (at that point it seemed restricted to only white, upper middle class, females, usually somewhere in age between 13-25) I had to read a lot of case studies on it, for a paper I was writing.  Over and over again, the girls who were suffering or in recovery spoke of the same thing; control.  They felt powerless in so many areas of life, but this was the one thing that they had control over completely.  That's why most of them freaked out completely when they were hospitalized and had feeding tubes.  Because that one area, the only area where they had that control, was taken away from them.  It didn't matter that they were going to die if they kept playing their games, that never factored into their thinking, all that they cared about was that someone was going to make them take food into their bodies, and they didn't want that.  

Back then, there were a lot of people who made fun of anorexia.  One of the girls in my class, who came from a poor background, single mother who had to work two jobs just so the family could eat, couldn't even deal with the idea of anorexia.  All she could do was see  rich, spoiled, white girls refusing to eat.   I had grown up just a shade below the background most of the victims had, and even I had trouble seeing how people could just refuse to eat, could make a game out of eating.  Most of the case studies were loaded with little rules these girls made up about how to eat.  "If I don't step on any cracks in the sidewalk, I can eat a spoonful of cottage cheese tomorrow," or, "If I ride my bike five miles in X amount of time, I can have a popsicle or a hoodsie cup.  But, if I go for the hoodsie cup, I have to throw it up later."  It was just...bizare.

Further looking into the case studies though, showed that a lot of these girls had lives more complicated than most folks not in their situation would understand.  Often they had presure on them to succeed and even do better at things that their parents were good at.  One study was the daughter of a ballet dancer who really hated dancing, but had been pretty much forced to take dancing lessons since the age of two, because her parents couldn't even fathom  their daughter not loving ballet as well.  A lot of them were involved in activities, not because they particularly liked them, but because their families, or the schools they attended thought they would be "good for them."  

I know that now, more people suffer from anorexia, that it isn't just a young upper middle to upper class white girl disese, so I don't know how much it's changed or how it's being defined now, but I would imagine, it still comes down to control in a lot of cases.  "You can make me do this, you can make me do that, you can force me to go here or there, but you cannot tell me what to eat and when I can eat it."  

Yes, a lot of the girls saw themselves as fat, there was a self image disorder too.  But, a lot of teenage girls, even back then, thought they were fat, even if they were wearing size 1 jeans.  But in the case of anorexia, the combination of the poor self image and the feeling of their own lives being out of their control seemed to be the combination to watch out for.

It just sucks that the world is so screwed up that people end up feeling that poorly about themselves, be it that they're too heavy, too thin, too ugly, too whatever.  It sucks that the world makes people feel inadequte.   I don't think it helps though, that  the media pushes a certain type of person at us, as an example of "true beauty," and she's almost always very skinny, blonde, with "bee stung" lips, huge knockers, and skinny little noses.  There are so many beautiful people out there, who don't match that stereotype, who seriously believe they are ugly or unattractive, or unimportant, because they don't have that Olsen Twin look to them.  It's sad. 

[misshate]

Thanks for explaining that, misshate. It does make sense when you put it like that. It's just something I'm really struggling to understand, but your explaination makes sense to me. It explains these sites as well. Helping each other fight that emptiness must feel like a really noble, worthwhile thing to do to these girls.
I do hope you're better now. I wish you all the best in any case.

Well, like any other disorder, anorexia is something you won't truly understand unless you're knee-deep in that crap. You may know the common causes, circumstances that make it more likely that Girl X is going to start starving herself, but you will never really get it. So it's normal people find it hard to understand, really.

(And thanks - yeah, after I finished college and started living a life that felt more like my own, I got better. Also, eh, in the past two years I've met some... forty? fifty? people dying of cancer - my gran was ill and I visited the oncology ward pretty regularly. This probably helped, too, awful as that may sound. Helped put things in perspective. Death's really kinda... you know. Fucking scary. And ugly. I'd rather live. If not for myself then for others.)

"If I don't step on any cracks in the sidewalk, I can eat a spoonful of cottage cheese tomorrow," or, "If I ride my bike five miles in X amount of time, I can have a popsicle or a hoodsie cup.  But, if I go for the hoodsie cup, I have to throw it up later."  It was just...bizare.

Oh jesus, tell me about it.

I know that now, more people suffer from anorexia, that it isn't just a young upper middle to upper class white girl disese

I think it may just have to do a lot with certain expectations you feel are put on you. Hence why anorexia affects mostly girls from wealthy/educated families, girls who feel like there's a certain standard they have to live up to. And this I think changed as the expectations grew along with technological development. Argh, hard for me to say what I mean here in English... Anyway - the world changed, simply, and it's harder to be a 'useful' member of the society nowadays than say 15 years ago, unless you have 3 degrees, speak 7 languages and etc... Well, that's how I feel it is in Europe, anyway. People are becoming redundant.

Yes, a lot of the girls saw themselves as fat, there was a self image disorder too.  But, a lot of teenage girls, even back then, thought they were fat, even if they were wearing size 1 jeans.

I wonder about this. I'm sure many anorexics have BDD in the first place, but I think some also develop it as they go further down the spiral. That's how i think it was in my case. At some point I stopped perceiving my body as it really looked, and I mean almost hallucinating, not just convincing myself I'm fat.

It just sucks that the world is so screwed up

I'm tempted to throw in some Gandhi quote here, but that's so... hippie

Welp, that thread's become doom and gloom indeed. Apologies, feel free to go back on topic

[heartless]

I know there is uglier out there, but...


Look at the texture of that sweater/shirt/whatever it is. It kind of looks like... I don't know. Like someone peeled her skin off and now it's growing back?
Not to mention the way the kid is looking up at the sky in pain and terror. I don't even know how to make my own sims look that perturbed.

[Devilfish]

I don't even know how to make my own sims look that perturbed.

Easy.

"Evi's a 50 year old fat guy with sticky fingers and no teeth and no candy? NOOOOOOOOooooo!!!"

[Pirate tARRt]

Mmk, so I don't know much about anorexia, and it's the middle of the night so I really can not be bothered to read all post right now, but I do have to say that the view on anorexia is quite crazy, at least where I live.

Pretty much, everyone who is skinny is called anorectic. I have been called anorectic, but I know I'm not. Yes, I'm skinny, and I know I am. But I am NOT, nor have I ever been, anorectic.
I'm a size 32/34, I belive 32 is the equalient to what you call size 0, and I weigh about 45-50kg according to my wii fit, which I've been using to try to GAIN weight. I love food. I eat more sweets and fat foods then most people, and the reason I stay skinny is genetic. I know gaining some wait would probably do me good, but I've found that to be quite impossible. My mother was very skinny as a teenager as well, so I know where I've got it from.

Either way, my point was that most people have no idea what anorexia is here. And they also don't realize that it's just as insulting to call someone a toothpick as calling someone fat.

[pixelated]

The thing is that her arms and legs look just fine.  It's her chest that seems to be having the problem.  Her face a bit too, but if the chest was okay, the face wouldn't look bad.

It's like her chest took a mental fit and decided enough was enough, they weren't going to absorb any nutrition.  "Let the rest of the body get fat, I, the neck, shall never be nourished again!"

In what world are those arms and that face "just fine"? O_O Honestly, she looks like a skeleton. Way to go, warped ideals.

[Soapinha]

I don't know much about anorexia, and sadly there can still be a lot of ignorance surrounding it - but from what I've read and seen, it's usually a lot deeper than 'I'm fat', although looks and feeling ugly can well be a catalyst. But, I have no authority to say so.

This thread is suddenly rather morbid. I think I may have started that.

[Paden]

[rant]

Bullshit, I watched some classmates suffer from it and tried my damnedest to help them out, so don't tell me what I do and do not know.They were track stars and they lived to run and felt the best way to get faster was to shuck all the weight off that they could. Their mother paid attention to them when they were winning races. Otherwise, the woman wouldn't piss on them to put them out if they were on fire. The sister in my class went on to suffer a heart attack before age thirty and while she's still alive, she is very careful to stress to her own children what is and what is not a healthy view of self.

Next time, make the effort to read the whole damn topic before telling us that we don't know what is going on with something and you may get a pleasant surprise.

I've been on both sides of the fence, weight wise, first too damn skinny as a teen and now too damn fat as an adult. Life is fucked up when your thyroid doesn't function properly, you know? But you know what? I'd trade the lard on my ass to be able to see my motherfucking collar bones properly again. If there was such a thing as a fat transplant, I'd be the first one in line to donate because I'd like my old weight back. And I would love, absolutely LOVE to be able to chase my son around the local park but can't because my knees are fucked up.

Don't tell me to try diets, they don't work when the gland that regulates everything in your body is slowly dying. Stop eating? Been there, done that. Doesn't work. Get more active? Yeah, right, it takes years to take off five pounds. Eat healthy? Uh huh, do that and still can't lose what growing a baby left behind. Actually, two babies, twelve years apart. The thyroid FAILED six months into the first pregnancy. While being made fun of for being rail thin with big boobs pissed me the fuck off when I was young, I'd go back to that gladly now that I look like I could be Cass Elliot's twin sister. I want my body, and my goddamn life back and it ain't gonna happen.

[/rant]

[Darqstar]

In what world are those arms and that face "just fine"? O_O Honestly, she looks like a skeleton. Way to go, warped ideals.

I never said her face was just fine.  I said her arms were just fine and compaired to that chest, they are fine.  If anything, they look on the heavy side when compaired to the chest.  Someone who's that skinny in the neck and chest you would expect to see the bones in the arms looking more pronounced.

Also, pixle dolls are never my "ideal" for anything.  

[EmilyTwitch]

In what world are those arms and that face "just fine"? O_O Honestly, she looks like a skeleton. Way to go, warped ideals.

I never said her face was just fine.  I said her arms were just fine and compaired to that chest, they are fine.  If anything, they look on the heavy side when compaired to the chest.  Someone who's that skinny in the neck and chest you would expect to see the bones in the arms looking more pronounced.

Also, pixle dolls are never my "ideal" for anything.  

Are you referring to the real picture used in the anti-Anorexic models campaign or the sim? I think that might be where the confusion lies.

[Darqstar]

Are you referring to the real picture used in the anti-Anorexic models campaign or the sim? I think that might be where the confusion lies.

The sim on the previous page (the one from WDS)