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.”
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At 5ft 8in, Valeria’s weight should be between 9st and 12st, according to NHS
advice. Instead she is a horrifying 4st 3lbs, less than HALF of what
her lightest healthy weight should be.
The crippling disorder has taken such a toll on Valeria that she can no longer
remember what bread tastes like.
Her daily diet now includes only fruit, one small meal of meat and vegetables.
Many foods have to be avoided because they don’t agree with her body any
more.
Valeria has been single for a decade because her illness makes her so
miserable.
She says: “It’s very hard to be in a relationship when you cannot share the
normal things that people do, such as going to restaurants or enjoying life.
“People don’t want to be around someone who is not in a good mood or not
upbeat.
“They want to live a happy life and not feel as though they are tied to this
person.”
She believes her mother’s criticism of her as a child is partly to blame for
her condition. Valeria explains: “My mother was afraid I would grow up obese
like my relatives. For that reason she tried to restrict my eating from a
very young age.
“She made me weigh myself regularly to check that I hadn’t put any weight on.
Because I was an only child, she wanted me to be perfect.”
At 16, and weighing 10st, Valeria moved to Chicago, USA, with her mum and
stepdad. The move brought even more pressure to be slim.
She adds: “The environment was very different. I wanted to be liked by
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.”
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.
Though she explains: “But it was my feelings of being an outsider that plagued
me most.” 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 have never 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.
She says: “I know I’m in a fragile state. I have to be very careful about
where I go or what I do.”
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.”
One of her fan letters
Hello dear Valeria,
I am 23 and weigh 8½st and I do not like myself this way. I want to look
skinny like Thumbelina. Nobody can persuade me not to diet, even though I
acquired gastritis and pancreatitis.
I have tried all kinds of diets but they all yielded only temporary results.
On my present diet I do not feel hungry eating 10½oz to 14oz of food per
day, I cannot return to my old way of eating because I fear I will gain
weight.
All my relatives are telling me it will hurt me, that I will be a victim of
anorexia. I am a little worried that one day I will be faced with a problem
of critically low weight and I want to know when to get worried. When did it
happen to you?
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