The fashion model who shaved her head

A successful model has made a career for herself with her immaculate physical perfection and ethereal beauty.  Her hair is long, dark and perfectly straight; whenever she is doing a photoshoot or due to appear in public her hairdresser trims, dries and styles her locks.  She has her nails done weekly and all excess hair is waxed off.  Rather than eating meals, she nibbles.  Daily trips to the gym are essential to ensure there is not an ounce of excess fat on her frame.  While all this takes effort, she has a tall and willowy figure she was born with, regular features and striking green eyes.
   

One day she is invited to a benefit dinner for a charity which works with young women with mental health issues.  Sitting opposite her at the table is one of the charity’s service users, a painfully thin young woman with skeletal hands and dark shadows under her eyes.  Her cheekbones and shoulder blades are sharply defined and her simple black dress hangs loosely off her frame.  As the model nibbles daintily at her meal, she sees the young woman move her chicken around her plate before hiding it under a pile of salad. 

The next day, the model eats a hearty breakfast and cancels her appointment with her beautician.  She asks her assistant to postpone all upcoming photoshoots indefinitely.  Then she takes a roll of plastic sacks and gathers up all the tiny but expensive designer clothes in her wardrobe, shoving them into bags.  She puts them all in the boot of her car and takes them to a charity shop.  

Over the coming weeks the weight piles on as she enjoys meal after meal.  Her nails become chipped and she bites them.  Her long hair is difficult to manage as she doesn’t go to the hairdressers any more, so she shaves it off.  Calls from the fashion houses become fewer and fewer as she becomes fatter and less and less well groomed.  She has to buy new clothes, but the shops she used to visit don’t stock her new size, so she finds cheaper ones that do. 

Some months later, when she no longer resembles the famous image in so many magazines, she starts volunteering with the charity whose gala dinner changed her so profoundly.  She meets young women like the one she observed hiding her chicken under her salad.  She listens to them and learns their stories.  She sees their scars and feels their secret fears.