“I think I’m going to die. No one is known to survive if they vomit after taking DNP. I’m so scared. I’m so sorry for being so stupid.” These were the words that 21-year-old Eloise Parry texted from hospital before she died after taking slimming pills that she had bought on the internet. The regret in her words serve to highlight the completely unnecessary and avoidable nature of her death. Another young woman’s life lost in pursuit of an unachievable body image ideal.
We are used to seeing coverage highlighting women’s daily battles with their bodies, their slimming obsession and their image anxieties. We live in an image-saturated culture and eating disorders are on the rise. Just yesterday, a new survey of 6,000 children found that some as young as eight were reporting body dissatisfaction, with 38.8% of 14-year-olds admitting to regular dieting. A fifth felt under pressure from the media to lose weight. I am surprised it’s not more. As I read about the survey on one news website, my eye is consistently drawn to an advert next to the article. “13 ways to burn fat all day” it reads.
Eloise Parry was not stupid; she had a history of eating disorders, and had been binge eating and purging. It can be difficult for those who have never entered the obsessive spiral that comes hand in hand with disordered eating to understand a young woman’s motivation for doing something so seemingly reckless as consuming drugs bought online. But as her mother explained at the inquest, Eloise had become blinkered, convinced the dangers she had read about had been exaggerated, that “being slimmer was worth the risk”.
We see headlines about diet pills once a year or so, and accounts of the awful deaths that can ensue. We see stories about young women such as 24-year-old Natalie Penney who, after buying pills online, collapsed at home, and had to attend a specialist heart clinic for two years, or of 23-year-old medical student Sarah Houston, who died in 2013. Parents and doctors have made repeated warnings, calling for better controls of these irresponsible websites which, even when suppressed, will pop up again within hours. But they are fighting a monumental battle.
When a body image preoccupation has become an obsession, the lure of a quick fix can outrun any appeal to reason. Especially when the internet is so ready to support your quest for the perfect body. The flat bellies of Facebook; queens of the before and after. The clean-eaters, many of whom appear to hide a fraught relationship with food behind the dogma of healthy eating. The supplements and vitamins with fake reviews and grandiose supporting claims. The pro-ana forums and thinspiration Tumblrs telling you that you get used to the hunger, to take cold baths, that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”.
It can feel like a well, this online world. It’s so easy to fall in, especially when you’re in the grip of a serious mental illness, though it can happen even when you’re not. Though deaths are rare, diet pill abuse is not uncommon. I have otherwise sensible friends who have taken them, likening their effect to speed. After the supplements and the laxatives, moving on to other tablets doesn’t feel like such a big step. But on some level, these young women know of the dangers, which is why they often don’t confide in anyone close to them about what they are taking.
I suspect this is further underpinned by the charade maintained by magazines and celebrities that weight loss, even when extreme, is smooth and effortless, the result of a fast metabolism, kale smoothies, yogalates, and running around after the kids all day. This cultural evasiveness, coupled with the secretive behaviours that are part and parcel with eating disorders, are why parents should speak openly about body image with their children, male and female (diet pills are often taken by male bodybuilders, a look that is becoming increasingly pursued by young men). You could do it tonight. No parent should ever have to hear or read words such as those from Eloise Parry, a young woman who wanted desperately to be thin, but did not want to die.
