A post over on The-F-word.org about a pending class action lawsuit of Heidi Kimberly Diaz, the founder of the Kimkin Diet made me think about a book I just finished.
The book is Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen.
The story is real life, about two wealthy British women who fell under the spell of a woman promising good health and happiness thru her "fasting cure". The details of what these two women went thru are horrific, yet the entire time, they believed in what this "doctor" was telling them. One sister died, the other was thankfully rescued from further harm by their childhood nanny.
What has it to do with the lawsuit? Well, from some of the things I've read thru the links at The-F-Word were how people are falling under the spell of someone who is promising big promises if you follow their "plan". In the case of Kimkin, she promises health, happiness and thinness if you pay your money and believe in her, even tho she has been proven a fraud. The Williamson sisters and countless others fell under the spell of Dr Hazzard and her "fasting cure". The scary thing is, the basics of both diets are similar, serious constriction of food, tho in the case of the fasting cure, total elimination of food except for small amounts of liquid and tortuous manipulations of the body by Dr Hazzard and her minions.
Yet when the diet isn't working, Diaz continues to tell people to cut their food even more, even when they are eating less then 300 calories! And take laxitives (rather like Dr Hazzard's prescription of daily enemas for her patients)! And some of them believe her! And do it! Shows what happens when you are so blinded by the need to fit into a preconceived ideal that one is willing to starve oneself to achieve it. Also show what happens to the brain from the lack of proper nourishment that someone doesn't question what is happening.
Hopefully no one has died from this loony woman's fraud. What is really scary is things haven't changed in 100 years. Frauds took money from people then, they still do today.
What is even sadder is how difficult it was then for scamsters to get busted, it is just as bad today.
The book is Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen.
The story is real life, about two wealthy British women who fell under the spell of a woman promising good health and happiness thru her "fasting cure". The details of what these two women went thru are horrific, yet the entire time, they believed in what this "doctor" was telling them. One sister died, the other was thankfully rescued from further harm by their childhood nanny.
What has it to do with the lawsuit? Well, from some of the things I've read thru the links at The-F-Word were how people are falling under the spell of someone who is promising big promises if you follow their "plan". In the case of Kimkin, she promises health, happiness and thinness if you pay your money and believe in her, even tho she has been proven a fraud. The Williamson sisters and countless others fell under the spell of Dr Hazzard and her "fasting cure". The scary thing is, the basics of both diets are similar, serious constriction of food, tho in the case of the fasting cure, total elimination of food except for small amounts of liquid and tortuous manipulations of the body by Dr Hazzard and her minions.
Yet when the diet isn't working, Diaz continues to tell people to cut their food even more, even when they are eating less then 300 calories! And take laxitives (rather like Dr Hazzard's prescription of daily enemas for her patients)! And some of them believe her! And do it! Shows what happens when you are so blinded by the need to fit into a preconceived ideal that one is willing to starve oneself to achieve it. Also show what happens to the brain from the lack of proper nourishment that someone doesn't question what is happening.
Hopefully no one has died from this loony woman's fraud. What is really scary is things haven't changed in 100 years. Frauds took money from people then, they still do today.
What is even sadder is how difficult it was then for scamsters to get busted, it is just as bad today.
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