14 DAY TRIAL // 23-year-old model Crystal Renn is currently the highest ranking plus-sized model. She has been featured in countless fashion shows and is a constant presence in fashion and style magazines – but it’s not without a price that she’s come to enjoy this kind of exposure. Aged just 13, Renn was discovered by a modeling agency, but was told she needed to lose some weight to be successful. For three years, she struggled with anorexia and came close to dying, Renn reveals in her book “Hungry,” as Fox News can confirm.
Critics often say that it’s the fashion industry that’s pushing young girls to adopt unhealthy habits in order to fit its never-bending standards. However, Renn says for her it was a matter of choice, since she was given the chance to back out and say she refused to lose the weight. But she knew modeling was her only ticket out, while, at the same time, that she needed to shift some pounds in order to get it. This was the first step she took towards becoming incredibly ill.
“I honestly couldn’t feel myself, I would have to literally count the veins on my arm when looking in mirror for reassurance that I was still standing in the same place that I was yesterday.” Renn tells Fox News of her frail self from a few years ago. She had switched a healthy diet that included cheesecake and fruits for the “model” diet consisting of a few leaves of lettuce a day, plenty of diet Coke and chewing gum. She eventually lost the required weight, Renn recalls, but she constantly felt she could push herself to lose more – soon enough, she was working out for up to eight hours each day.
She realized she had hit rock bottom when, in the dead of a winter night, she found herself on the edge of an unheated hotel pool, trying to force herself to do some laps. Oblivious to anything else but the image of herself on the runaway, Renn jumped in the freezing water and, screaming and crying all the time, did the laps. Next day, she decided she couldn’t continue anymore and started seeking help for her severe anorexia.
Today, at a very healthy size 14, Renn says she has come to enjoy her life – even working as a plus-size model is more pleasant because she gets more respect and is allowed to be herself. “My size shouldn’t matter.” she says. “Let’s get rid of straight size and plus size. It’s bull[expletive]. Just say model. Full stop. I’m a curvy girl. You can’t erase it… Women should be able to look at me and think: ‘She’s beautiful.’ But also: ‘I could look like that.’” Renn adds.