I AM WORTH THE WEIGHT

Robalini's Note: Why are women so screwed in the head about their bodies? Read the story below, and remember, the "after" picture is of Crystal Renn as a "plus-size" model...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08302009/news/regionalnews/i_am_worth_the_weight_187167.htm

I AM WORTH THE WEIGHT
MODEL BARES JOURNEY FROM WAIF TO 'BIG' WINNER
August 30, 2009

When she was 16, Crystal Renn signed a $250,000 modeling contract and moved to the city. But after starving herself for years to stay at 95 pounds, she gave it all up to become a plus-size model -- and finally, at size 12, achieved major success. With her memoir, "Hungry," due out Sept. 8, Renn tells her story to The Post.

Nine years ago, when I was 14 years old, a modeling scout spotted me at an etiquette class in my hometown of Clinton, Miss., and pulled me aside to show me a photo of supermodel Gisele in a clingy white gown. "This could be you," he said.

There was just one problem. I was 5-foot-8 and 165 pounds. The scout told me that if I lost 8 inches off my 43-inch hips, he could make me a famous model in New York City.

Until I met the scout, I never paid attention to what I ate. If I wanted a cupcake, I ate two. After the scout put dreams of stardom in my head, weight loss became my job.

By the end of ninth grade, I was eating only veggies or plain chicken. Combined with two-hour workouts every day, I quickly dropped to 120 pounds.

By 2002, I was too thin for a size zero. I called the modeling scout. "Come now," I told him.

The minute he saw me, he said, "You're going to New York!"

I quit high school in 11th grade and moved into an apartment in Midtown with my grandmother and other models.

I was 16, 5-foot-9 and 95 pounds, and I signed a three-year, $250,000 contract with the agency. To keep up my end of the deal, I ate less than 1,000 calories a day -- vegetables for breakfast, lettuce for lunch, veggies again for dinner.

I would wake up at night in a cold sweat, wondering if the three pieces of sugarless gum I chewed during the day had calories.

I joined two gyms and worked out four hours a day.

Although I was the right size, I was a bad model. I had a sour demeanor all the time. Potential clients complained to the agency that I had a "weird personality."

During one photo shoot on a Brooklyn rooftop in 2002, the photographer kept screaming at me: "I need to see who you are! Show me emotion." I started screaming about wanting a fat-free blueberry muffin.

I was also completely asexual. I had lost my period, and I didn't even attract much attention from men.

Despite all my efforts, the dream that was promised to me -- of being the next Gisele and appearing in Vogue -- was not happening.

By the time I was 18, my metabolism was also slowing down. I was eating as little as ever, but somehow I was back at 130 pounds.

At a shoot in Chicago, I finally reached my breaking point. When I arrived on set, the photographer freaked out.

"I can't use her, she's huge!" he screamed. "How fat are you?" he asked me.

"You loved me at the casting four days ago," I mumbled.

"Did you gain 20 pounds in four days?" the producer snapped. "You have to leave."

It was the most humiliating moment of my life. But I collected myself, walked over to the catered food table and downed five plates of mini-burritos with cheese. I gorged on guacamole. I ate until I felt like I was going to throw up.

"Thanks for the food," I yelled back and left.

On the airplane home, I thought my career was over.

I knew I was never going to weigh 95 pounds again. I was done. And for the first time in years, I could breathe.

When I got back to New York, my agent told me that I could still work if I didn't keep gaining weight. "You can aspire to Victoria's Secret, but you'll never be in Vogue."

I asked her if there were any other options.

"There's always plus size," she said.

I was too hungry to keep starving. I made my decision: I was going to be a plus-size model and let my body be what it was meant to be.

When I first started eating normally again, I jumped to a size 16 for a few months before settling into a size 12. It was when I stopped starving myself that I became a famous model.

My official "coming out" as a plus-size model was in 2004, when I posed for Teen Vogue. That same year, I finally achieved my dream of appearing in the pages of American Vogue.

And another strange thing happened. At the same time I gained weight, I became interested in men.

I met my future husband, Greg, in August 2005 at a bar in the West Village, and I liked him immediately. We've been together ever since -- we married two years ago and now live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Women are taught that if they get skinny, their lives will be perfect. But real life doesn't work that way. I'm here to prove it.