Katie Price, Chantelle Houghton; celebrities and eating disorders

By Liz Lockhart

The tabloids are full of stories about speculation of whether Katie Price has an eating disorder. She surely has been slammed by eating disorders charities and campaigners for being irresponsible.

It all started when Katie plugged her friend’s juice diet by flaunting her painfully skinny body. Her midriff is alarming thin and her ribs protrude so much that they resemble something from a famine relief poster.

‘I love it’ Katie wrote ‘Been doing juices from Jason Vale and 2 meals with no carbs a day and can really see the difference.’ Perhaps Katie cannot see herself as other see her. Her body looks totally unhealthy. What is worrying is that she sees this as attractive.

Katie has had many cosmetic procedures to ‘enhance’ her appearance and now it would seem extreme dieting. This sort of behaviour is indicative of low self-esteem.

Ms. Price has a large following of very young girls and owes her fame and fortune, in large part, to these vulnerable young people. To so openly flaunt and advocate such an emaciated-looking body could reasonably be considered irresponsible.

Katie Green, the founder of the ‘Say No to Size Zero’ campaign said ‘This is very irresponsible. There are 1.1 million people with eating disorders in the UK and it could influence them.’

Meanwhile, Chantelle Houghton, reality TV star, has been very open in interviews this week about the toll that her eating disorder has had on her health and fertility. She says that she is unlikely to conceive naturally following years of dieting and bulimia. Chantelle had a pain in her left ovary and visited a clinic where a scan and a series of fertility tests were carried out.

In an interview published in Heat magazine this week Chantelle says ‘I was at home and had no idea they (the results) were going to arrive in the post.’

‘I opened it and saw numbers and a graph and there were all these words like low’ and ‘diminished’.

Ms. Houghton visited a fertility expert two days later and was told that she would not be able to conceive naturally. She had low fertility and if she wants a baby she will have to have IVF treatment.

Chantelle said that she wanted to raise awareness of what extreme dieting can do to women.

‘All the time I as making myself sick. I was thinking ‘Yes, I’m getting skinnier’. I thought I was winning but I was losing. Its cost me the chance of a family.’ Chantelle said.

Thank you Chantelle for being so open and honest – this is a stark reality that may help young girls to think twice about the consequences of eating disorders and extreme dieting.

Katie Price already has three children but should note that there are many other problems associated with eating disorders.

The nhs.uk website says ‘If it is not treated, an eating disorder can have a negative impact. The physical effects of an eating disorder can sometimes be fatal’.

This ties in with the news report we featured last week that suggests anorexia patients have a 5x higher premature death rate.

Please remember this Ms. Price when you openly publish and promote your much too skinny body. We hope that you get the help you need so you can spread a more positive message of self respect and worth to your valuable following – alternatively you may like to just keep your body hang ups to yourself?