Newcastle teenager reveals horror of eating disorder

Mar 28 2010 by Kim Carmichael, Sunday Sun

TRAPPED in a world of self-loathing, teenager Samira Jay starved herself until her weight plummeted to a dangerously low five stone.

Gripped by an eating disorder, she spent her days surfing pro-anorexia websites and hiding the truth away from the world.

Like thousands of youngsters, Samira was consumed by a crippling obsession with her weight that began as a need for control when she was only 12.

The illness took over every aspect of her life until, at 16, she weighed just 5.5 stone and, hospitalised and attached to a drip, doctors warned that she could die.

So powerful was the grip of anorexia and bulimia the Emmanuel College student would survive on chewing gum and water . . . and make a packet of crisps last two weeks.

She would regularly log on to dangerous hyper-dieting websites, picking up the tips and encouragement to fuel her disorder.

It was on these sick sites that the youngster would post pictures of her emaciated frame, charting her journey to the brink of death.

She would also log how little she had eaten, comparing herself to other teenagers in a warped weight-loss battle.

But with every waking hour ruled by the disease, Samira, of Summerhill, Newcastle, quickly began to lose control of the battle.

“I always felt second best, like I didn’t fit in,” said the 18-year-old IT student.

“When I was 12 I started to refuse to go for dinner at school and make myself sick.

“Things were going terribly wrong for me and I didn’t even notice at the time what was happening.

“From there it just manifested out of control.

“I just used to lie to the people around me saying I’d eaten when I hadn’t and I used to be sick when people got angry at me.

“Eating disorders are not just about the need to be thin or lose weight, it just becomes that in the end.

“They are a way of coping in life, like a form of control, when everything else is going wrong. “The pro-anorexia websites were really damaging.”