Pippa Middleton, the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge who gained famed after being zoomed into the public eye at the duchess’ wedding to Prince William, has been pegged as a role model on websites advocating anorexia.
Pro-anorexia websites advocate extreme thinness and eating disorders, and serve as a place where young women, mostly, can go for ‘thinspiration’ in their quests to become slimmer, as well as obtain tips on dieting and hiding their disorder.
Now Middleton is being looked upon as a role model for the websites’ visitors. “Starve yourself to look this good,” reads a message on one website, beneath a photo of Middleton. “Thin – or die trying,” reads a message on another webpage.
Middleton (27), however, doesn’t appear to give any indication of being anorexic herself. She is actually quite athletic, having run 32 kilometres and cycled another 48 kilometres in a duathlon on 18 June. Two weeks prior to that, she completed a 5-kilometre race in Woodstock, England.
The pro-anorexia websites have not gone unnoticed by health experts. Prof John Morgan from the Royal College of Psychiatrists has said the sites are making eating disorders seem ‘normal’ to teenagers, and the French government had even tried to crack down on the websites by imposing stiff penalties and jail terms on people who run the websites.
Photo: Pippa Middleton at the wedding of her sister, Kate, to Prince William, on 29 April 2011
