A young male just over his A-Levels, living not far from me, has died taking DNP, an industrial chemical popular with bodybuilders to help them to lose body fat. Easily available online, this drug has recently killed a young female medical student who had been battling bulimia with the help of a counsellor.
Women and men are increasingly concerned about their weight and would turn to desperate measures to lose weight at any cost. Some are prepared to risk their lives, they say it would be better to be dead than overweight.
Overweight is often a state of mind not a state of the body. You can feel unbearably fat if you are just a few pounds bigger than you want to be. I don’t think anyone really knows how horrific it can feel to be inside a body that is driving you to madness.
I am terribly sad at the waste of this young life. I ask myself, did he know the risks? If we could bring him back from the grave and ask him if he would do it differently, would he let his dangerous habits go? Or would he just try something else instead?
Life inside a body you hate is the most miserable thing in the world unless other things are just more important to you. Life inside a body you hate is the breeding ground from eating disorders which steal your time, your relationships and your health.
Part of me thinks that if this boy couldn’t bear to be a normal size and shape his death may have spared him endless years of torment. Is that a terrible thing for me to say?
What a mad world we live in. What terrible things we do to ourselves in the pursuit of thin. If you are a coach, a teacher, a parent or a sufferer and if you are reading this blog. Just stop whatever you are doing. Nothing and I mean NOTHING is more important than health or wellbeing. Not winning at sports, not being a good dancer or a pretty daughter or the thinnest person in the room.
NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN LIVING A HEALTHY LIFE IN A REASONABLY HEALTHY BODY.
End of story.