Weighing just four stone, extreme anorexic Valeria Levitin is
thought to be the thinnest woman in the world. Her
malnourished figure and matchstick-thin thighs should serve
as a stark warning about the dangers of eating disorders.
But worryingly, Valeria says she gets FAN MAIL from girls
desperate to copy her skeletal look. The 39-year-old says:
“I have received emails from young girls who want me to
teach them how to be like me”. “All the letters I’ve had are
from women, mainly in their twenties, who see me as some
kind of inspiration."
“This is why I want to campaign against anorexia. I am not
going to teach them how to die. It is not a game, it is not a
joke, it is your life”.
Valeria, who developed her eating disorder as a teenager,
has chosen to speak out about how the illness has ruined her
life — and how she is desperate to win her battle in order to
have a family.
“I want to share my story to help sufferers and their families
from repeating my fate”, says Valeria, who is originally from
Russia but now lives in Monaco. “I want young people to live
happy, healthy and meaningful lives. Anorexia has made me
lonely, unattractive and repulsive for the people around me.”
5ft 8in, Valeria’s weight should be between 9st and 21st,
according to NHS advice. Instead she isa horrifying 4st 3lbs,
less than HALF of what her lightest healthy weight should be.
At 16, and weighing 10st, Valeria moved to Chicago, USA, with
her mum and step-dad. The move brought even more pressure
to be slim.
She said: “The environment was very different. I wanted to be
liked everyone and I thought that if I lost weight, I would be
accepted”.
“I started cutting out certain foods from my diet — I wouldn’t
eat sugar or carbohydrates”. “I became trapped in a vicious
circle where I needed to lose more weight to feel happy with
myself”.
“Now it’s almost impossible to put the weight I’ve lost back on
because my body can’t process many foods”.
When a classmate made a cruel comment about
Valeria’s figure, she became even more
determined to lose weight.
She explains: “We were playing football and
during the game a man said, ‘I know how we
can win. We need to put Valeria’s big ar*e in
the goal’. It shattered my whole world
 |
| Valeria as a little girl |
By the time she was 23, Valeria’s dress size
had plummeted from a healthy size 12 to a
tiny size six. And attempts at getting into
modelling only made matters worse — because
she was told she was STILL too fat.
Valeria’s passion was ballet and she dreamed
of becoming a dancer. But at 24, and weighing
just 6st, she was banned from dancing over
concerns she would injure herself.
For the next ten years she saw more than 30
health specialists, though once dipped to a
dangerously low 3st 10lbs.
She says now:
“This disease is not about being cured by a
doctor”. “It’s a deeper problem than that;
it’s a lack of harmony between body and
soul. I never gained any weight seeing
specialists. I havenever been hospitalised.
“The best cure I ever found was when I
said to myself, ‘I’m going to recover”.
“I was feeling better and when you feel
better your body starts to come back to
normal. When you become healthier your
body will start eating, not vice versa.
“You don’t force yourself to eat then
become better, it’s not like that”.
Today she takes supplements to counter
the risk of bruising and avoids situations where
she could fall.
Now Valeria believes the solution could lie in
moving back to Moscow. There is one incentive
to get well again — having a baby via a surrogate.
It is something she feels she can do if she
can get herself healthy. “I think moving back to
Moscow would help me once again feel at ease
with myself”, she says.
“I would love to have a family because I feel I
have so much to give”. “But obviously it wouldn’t
be right to have a baby when I am ill. It wouldn’t be
fair on the child”.
“I want to stand up to anorexia. I’ve never given up
on anything in my life and I’m not about to
give up now”. “I must win, in order to feel that my
life hasn’t been wasted”.
Written by Unknown
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