Too Fictional To Be Beautiful
Big Fat Blog did some investigative reporting on the Too Beautiful To Be Fat story, and it turns out that it's not exactly "true" in the traditional sense:
"By necessity, Nia is a composite of different people and incidents...'What has happened to my beautiful child?'--boy or girl--is perhaps the question parents of mentally ill adolescents have asked most often. What happens in psychiatric wards everywhere is that people lose themselves, in various ways, due to various problems and conditions."
So for those of you who were suspicious of the veracity of this story: good call! The magazine's full response can be read here, and there are other interesting responses to the article reprinted there.
"By necessity, Nia is a composite of different people and incidents...'What has happened to my beautiful child?'--boy or girl--is perhaps the question parents of mentally ill adolescents have asked most often. What happens in psychiatric wards everywhere is that people lose themselves, in various ways, due to various problems and conditions."
So for those of you who were suspicious of the veracity of this story: good call! The magazine's full response can be read here, and there are other interesting responses to the article reprinted there.
posted by mo pie at 9:18 AM
3 Comments:
I think it's pretty disgusting that they made up this fictional young woman for this story. There are planty of ways they could have told the story of how many people on medications for mental illness suffer from rapid weight gain, without this completely fictional "story". There's so many stories that write about a point, then fill it out with an anecdote about and anonymous patient, then another point, another anonymous patient, etc. etc. That style of journalism wasn't good enough for this magazine?
I bet it's because they felt the story would get more buzz if they made up a composite character. They were right on the buzz, but have wasted a valuable opportunity to educate their readers about this topic.
I've been trying to stay out of this one, not because I know anyone who's on antipsychotics, but because my boyfriend and I are doing some "side-effects/benefits" balancing ourselves at the moment.
He's recently started taking an antidepressant that's yet to have any noticeable positive effect, but makes him feel nauseous, headachy and leaden-limbed. He's already fretting about losing physical condition because he doesn't feel like exercising - it is a valid concern for many people.
I admit that were he psychotic, I might think that any side-effects were acceptable, but at the moment my feelings are decidedly mixed.
On the other hand, I think the article was completely wrong-headed: people have mentioned various things; I feel suggesting the girl was particularly "special" to her parents because she was pretty is highly bizarre - don't most parents think their children are lovely?
I've long thought that most of the women's magazine stories and self-help books are made up primarily of phoney anecdotes that the authors pull out of their ass to "illustrate" their message.
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