Barbi Twins – Dying To Be Healthy: Millennium Dieting and Nutrition
This book is geared for people (primarily women) of all ages. The book explains why diets alone do not work. The book explores the fascinating phenomenon of Americans consuming less fatty food and exercising more than people of other nations, and yet comprising the nation of the highest overweight population and the nation with the most heart problems. The readers discover that being overweight is only a symptom of deeper problems or illnesses. The book further addresses bulimia, which the late princess Diana has now shown to be a worldwide problem. The book also analyzes various forms of body dismorphia illustrating the points by surveys such as the ones that show that 85% of teenage girls think they are overweight when they are not. The book first covers the Barbi Twins’ bouts with bulimia and anorexia and then takes the reader through a step-by-step process of recovery through the knowledge of how to achieve radiant health and fitness which is now the path of the Barbi Twin… More >>
Barbi Twins – Dying To Be Healthy: Millennium Dieting and Nutrition
The book was not what I expected. I thought it would be more like a novel, although it did have useful information on nutrition.
…I think the book was written well. They told the truth about all the fad diets out there and what they basically do. I liked their honesty about how they struggled with their weight and what damage they did to themselves to let girls know the imperfections behind the perfections. However, I would have liked to see more depth in Sia’s writing. I wanted to know how this disorder happened. Was it learned by watching their mother? Or maybe genetic? They mentioned trying to be perfect and this infatuation with food since they were little, but what happened in their lives that caused those feelings? I would have like to have known what their childhood was like, how their parents acted, and the emotional recovery of their addiction. The scary diet stories were good, but they just sounded crazy after a while. Instead of writing what they did, I would like to have known what was going on in their head. How were they feeling that made them want to do this instead of just for work. What were the emotional and physical recovery of this addiction like…I would liked to have seen photos that showed them looking bloated or how they look in their everyday life or none at all. I like the picture on the front cover, that definitley catches the eye, but the photos inside seemed to encourage vomiting and laxative use.
Sia’s account of bulimia was too vague on many levels, though I applaud her and Shane’s courage for revealing at all, an otherwise private and personal condition.
I have to admit that I was sickened and offended by the pornographic type photos included inside their book! These photos are from their younger “porn calendar days” and show them at their thinnest and sickest, yet with the wonders of air brushing and good lighting, we the reader, have the impression that they are these perfect, flawless beauties who’ve never had one care in the world, much less a potentally fatal “disease”! Their airbrushed photos don’t reflect reality at all and might as well be a painting!
They should have been more REALISTIC about this disorder by including photos of how they looked a day AFTER a binge, with NO MAKEUP or airbrushing!! They should have let us see the REAL FACE of bulimia a day AFTER a binge–ie. dark circles, puffy bloated faces, swollen bellies, legs and feet and super baaad breath (from vomiting)and gas. It ain’t glamourous folks!
Instead, we see airbrushed photos from their porn/calendar days. This was a major blunder on their part. It’s just too phony and doesn’t portray the REALITY of this disorder at all. In fact, it gives us the mistaken idea that bulimia is even glamorous! Had they been courageous enough to have themselves photographed a day AFTER a binge, now THAT I WOULD admire because that would take REAL GUTS!!!
They didn’t mention the horrible stench that bulimia causes: the horrendous gas, diarrhea and/or vomit. It’s a very stinky problem indeed and no humour intended! I don’t mean that they needed to gross people out by including vivid details but I do think that the “stink factor” should have received an honourable mention somewhere and yet it was left out, like it didn’t exist.
The recipe and nutritional information was helpful but a little too long winded at times and I felt Sia took up too much of the book with it, as I was more interested in their battle with bulimia and how they overcame it (or did they?).
Sia seemed to shy away from including too many personal details, which left the me reader (and a recovering bulimic myself) feeling somewhat cheated. I wouldn’t say this book was a terrible read but it was too vague.
I give the twins credit for going public with a very private and antisocial disorder (when your bloated, gassy and swollen from head to toe, you AVOID people like the plague until your “clean” again) but wish they’d quit the calendar business altogther and find another career because it cheapens their credibility !! What they call “calendar photos” is really glamourized porn in my oh so humble opinion.
They have degrees in nutrition, so I wish they’d do something with that (obviously it doesn’t pay as well and is harder work than just posing for airbrushed photos, which any airhead with a nice body could do), instead of playing into the blonde, bimbo, Barbie doll image.
In my opinion, the twins have cheapened their testimony as recovered bumimics, by remaining in the calendar/porn business, since it’s a phony, shallow, plastic industry built entirely on physical appearance, airbrusing and good lighting. It also caters to the base instinct in men (with low IQ’s), which degrades ALL women in the process.
Until they leave the calendar/porn industry completely, they will never be taken seriously by most people, including BULIMICS !! The general public will think it’s a publicity stunt to boost their sagging careers.
This book would get five stars if it would elminate two parts: the photos of the twins and most of the scary diet stories. Sia should instead have concentrated on more personal issues of why they were so deep into eating disorders and how they got help. The nutrition advice was very helpful and I learned a great deal. However, Sia tried to cover too many bases with this one. Just the disorder alone could fill one book sufficiently.
This book…is so tremendous that my life had been altered. Beauty is so sought after and so strived for that our bodies become the testing ground for unhealthy and unrealistic goals. The Barbie Twins, Shana and Sia, look to most the definion of beauty; blond, thin, big busted, and famous. How many of us would “die” for what they appeared to have-too many. Vomiting, over-dosing on laxtives, and extreme exertion seemd like a perfectly good and healthy way to keep that sense of beauty strong and vital; they invented “tricks” to defy their addiction-when in truth they really were “dying” to be perfect. This book is just amazing. It offers an incredibly candid and thoughtful take on addiction-not just to food but to other areas of addiction as well. It totally opened my eyes to what some go through to obtain an inner sense of perfection that never is insaitable. Food is an addiction and this book is an avenue to recovery.