Friday’s Rants from the Soap Box in My Living Room!

Welcome to my Friday’s Rants from the Soap Box in my Living Room. A small space in the week where I can have a chunter about things that have made me twitch with annoyance or made me question if the world has gone mad or not….
I also  linked up with MummyBarrow for her Ranty Friday. You can find her blog and link up here if you’d like to join in. A good rant can be therapeutic.

I have already had a bit of a rant about that Dove video, and now Samantha Brick is on my hit list.

She wrote this article for the Daily Mail yesterday. I am not going to quote her, you will have to go and read it for yourself, but basically, she is starving herself, and believes that if you aren’t thin, and on a perpetual diet, then you are ugly, unattractive, and a hopeless case. I would rather watch the Dove video a million times than read the drivel that she wrote yesterday again. I don’t actually buy or read the Daily Mail, it is usually filled with articles that either make me want to cry or raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels, but when I saw her trending on Twitter I went and read what she had written.

Yes, I know she is probably writing this stuff to make people talk, and it is after all written in the Daily Mail, which isn’t exactly the shining light of the newspaper world in terms of what it prints and publishes, but I have to wonder at the Daily Mail allowing this stuff to be publicized. The woman is encouraging women to starve themselves, in order to be attractive. Whilst most of the population out there, hopefully takes what she has to say with a grain of salt, there are actually people out there who will take what she says seriously and who are vulnerable enough to believe what she writes.

I also think she has an eating issue, and clearly is making herself unwell, in order to be thin, at one point in the article she says something along the lines of “when I diet, I have no energy to work or go out”, um, hello, doesn’t that scare anyone?

I am sad, that this sort of article, gets public viewing, and given all the issues young girls and women struggle with these days, that a national newspaper thinks it is acceptable to publish it. Encouraging healthy eating, exercise, positive self-image and promoting sensible lifestyles is clearly too much for the DM to even think about, they’d rather let drivel such as this be spread to vulnerable people.

This is not the first. nor am sure the last time Samantha Brick will write or say utter nonsense in the name of getting herself heard and talked about, but it’s a crying shame it is regarded as journalism, and that people actually pay for and buy the Daily Mail if this is the example they set.

I hope that she actually gets some help, she sounds very unhappy and unhealthy, but from what she’s written, those closest to her seem to encourage her behaviour, which is even sadder.

I won’t be reading the Daily Mail any time soon. As a recovered Bulimic and Anorexic, I actually cried when I read her article. I used to live on one apple and one cup of low-fat Horlicks a day, at my worst times, when I was starving myself, and at my thinnest, was a size 6/8, which is not a healthy weight for me, and when you look at the very few photos I have of me, then, you can see how awful I looked. I remember feeling so triumphant at being so “slim”, but now I look back and see how dreadfully unwell I was, and how much damage I was doing to myself, physically and mentally. I hate that someone can write such a public article making starving yourself, surviving on a diet of polo mints, and passing out from hunger, seem so glamorous and the “thing to do” if you want to be slim and pretty.

When I read the article, yesterday, I was furious, and in tears, today, I am just sad. Sad for Samantha Brick, sad that a national newspaper perpetuates such drivel, sad that people will read what she wrote and think it’s ok, sad that people out there actually AGREED with her, and sad for the women out there, who feel the way she does and are making themselves thinner, and ill, in the vain attempt to look more attractive. I nearly died from starving myself, I put my family and friends through an awful time, and there are thousands of women, girls, men and boys struggling with eating and self-image issues. Shame on you, Daily Mail, for perpetuating misogyny, and encouraging women to have eating and self-image issues. I won’t ever pick up a copy of your paper again. I actually think any self-respecting person should feel the same.

 Click on the linky below to join in the other rants!