The girls of St Thinian’s

24 March 2007

Is it anorexia nervosa that’s epidemic at St Thinian’s? I don’t think so, because none of my friends seem dangerously thin just yet, and they don’t suffer from the classic signs of anorexia: hair-loss, fatigue or dehydration. But even if it’s not a lethal disease, it’s still upsetting, because in their desperate attempt to be very thin, the girls with the virus seem to want to shrink not just their dress size but their whole world. They lose interest in everything apart from themselves and their appearance. They don’t want to talk about books or films, go for walks or even to shop. They have one focus in life: being a zero. I don’t think this phenomenon is just a normal part of being a teenage girl, either — after all, the government is so worried about it that it has, for the first time, agreed to fund a large-scale research project into why British girls are suffering from eating disorders.

So what’s the cause of this fixation? Well, from what I can see, despite all the worrying about super-skinny catwalk models, the major influence on the weight-obsessed girls I know isn’t high fashion but rather the glossy magazines that the fashion industry inspires — Heat, Closer and perhaps Glamour. It is not a skinny model in Vogue who persuades the girls at my school to follow in their footsteps, it’s ‘ordinary’ women like Wayne Rooney’s girlfriend, Coleen, and her latest all-powerful, cellulite-busting yo-yo diet; also the endless stories of ‘real-life’ people who lost lots of weight and lost it fast. These are our heroes. Though we’re all relatively bright girls at a decent school, our role models aren’t professional lawyers, politicians or novelists, they are first and foremost thin women. We all love watching Sex and the City, but I’ve noticed that despite the fact that so many of us want successful professional careers, we would all rather be Carrie, with her minuscule waist, than Miranda, the less glamorous friend who is a partner at a law firm, has a baby and a fantastic apartment.