In the Image of Twiggy

      Twiggy was a sensation when I turned 16. She looked androgynous. She was a tall, super skinny waif with huge eyes, short hair and perfect bone structure. She was the world’s most famous face and model, and girls all over the world wanted to be her.

Melinda as a teenager.

      People often commented that I looked like Twiggy, and I considered that a wonderful compliment. Little did they know that I looked like her because I had anorexia.

      Back in 1966 people didn’t know what anorexia was, so at the age of 13 after my mother died and I stopped eating, there was little concern. No one really noticed or cared that I only weighed 90 pounds. I was a great student, a star basketball player and gymnast. Twiggy had nothing to do with my stopping eating, but she sure supported the way I looked. Twiggy was the “go to look” of the 1960s and, really, the next three decades. Tall, emaciated, wide eyed, hungry, sad and revered.

      When my periods stopped when I was a teen, my father became concerned and took me to several specialists who had no idea what was wrong with me. They told him I may never have children.

      My dad, thinking he was helping, would make me sit at the table staring at a plate filled with food and demand I clean my plate before he would let me go to bed. I often sat there into the wee hours of the morning, falling asleep with my head on the table. He failed and I won.

      When I went off to New York and college I secured quite a few modeling jobs. I had the look. At the age of 20, my first date with the man who would become my husband was a swimming party at a lake in New Hampshire. When I walked out to the lake in my swimsuit everyone stared at me. My husband told me later that I was emaciated and my limbs were blue. I am not sure why in that moment he did not end our relationship.

      He tells me now, 55 years later, that he thought I had great potential. One night on a psilocybin trip, my period came back and within a year I was pregnant with my son. He was my miracle baby. Needing to nourish my miracle baby, I began to eat.

      It wasn’t until I was 25 that I was diagnosed with body dysmorphia and anorexia. My dad had passed away the year before so sadly he never knew I had an eating disorder.

      Twiggy and the super-thin representations of beauty eventually fell out of favor as more and more eating disorders were identified and it was discovered that young people were suffering and dying from them. Today approximately 9 percent of the U.S. population will experience an eating disorder in their lifetime. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder, estimated at 10-20 percent. Early intervention and treatment can significantly improve recovery rates and outcomes.

      It is a lifelong disorder. Even today when I am sad, I notice that my appetite wanes and I have to force myself to eat. I will inevitably have to take the disorder to my grave.