Christina sold her story to the Daily Mail.

The Daily Mail  

 

'The Lighter Life diet caused my anorexia'

'How do I sell my story?', asked Christina Massingham when she contacted Talk to the Press. Christina lost almost half her body weight on the well known Lighter Life diet, but, she says, the regime lead to her becoming so obsessed with calorie counting that she ended up anorexic. In another of our famous multi-media deals, Christina sold her story to the Daily Mail, the Sun and also Real People magazine. 

 

 

 

 

Do you have a diet or weight loss story you would like to sell to a women's magazine or newspaper? To sell your diet or weight loss story, or to sell any other story, contact us now. Fill in our story submission form on the right, or call us direct....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DYING TO BE THIN; It's the new diet craze sweeping Britain. But Lighter Life's punishing 500-cals-a-day regime has been linked to memory loss, heart attacks ... and even death

 

SARAH Barker weighed 23 stone when she turned in desperation to the seemingly miraculous diet that would transform her life.

She wanted to slim for her daughters' sake. The 38-year-old science teacher had tried many diets but, like many dieters, she always piled the weight back on.

But LighterLife — the dieting craze which currently has 15,000 followers in Britain — appeared to be the answer to her dreams. Following its very low calorie diet, which replaces all meals with nutritionally balanced shakes, her weight plummeted.

In eight months she shed an incredible 11 stone, dropping eight dress sizes from a 30 to a 14, and was thrilled with her new shape — as was her husband, James, a 32-year-old farmer, and children aged 15, five and three, with whom she could now enjoy a more active life.

'I had bags more energy and started going to the gym,' says Sarah, who lives in Fadmoor, North Yorkshire, and was on the diet from January to September 2006. 'It was a completely new me and, at £66 a week, I thought it was money well spent.' Today, however, Sarah believes the diet has ruined her health, and claims that following such a low calorie intake for so long caused muscle pains, poor vision, memory loss and tiredness.

'Until I started LighterLife I had never had a medical problem in my life,' she says.

'Now I struggle to remember things and I can't even watch my three daughters playing on the swings because movement brings on blurred vision.' Yet LighterLife, which is endorsed by Coleen Nolan and Antony Worrall Thompson and had a turnover last year of £21 million, insists its diet plan is safe. It says the foodpacks, which cost £66 for a week's worth of shakes, are specially developed to satisfy daily nutritional needs and stresses that clients are medically approved by their doctor before taking part. Counsellors trained by the company provide weekly therapy sessions to change the way people think about food.

However, a growing number of disenchanted dieters are speaking out, along with alarmed doctors and nutritionists.

They question the company's approach, which teaches people to abstain from food and survive by consuming just 500 liquid calories a day — a quarter of an adult's normal recommended intake.

Some healthcare professionals claim the diet is downright dangerous, a form of supervised starvation, leading to potential health problems and even eating disorders as people struggle to come off the regime. TWO years ago, 25-year-old Matilda Callaghan died from heart arrhythmia after spending six months on LighterLife. The coroner recorded an open verdict, as to what caused the fatal arrhythmic heartbeat, recognising that while — as the company argued — being obese can kill, so too can losing weight quickly.

But leading obesity expert Professor John Garrow was unequivocal: he blamed Matilda's death on her rapid ten-stone to ' in It by weight loss which, he said, reduced the lean tissue in her heart.

Professor Garrow says: 'Studies show semi-starvation diets deplete the protein and muscle of internal organs, resulting in an increase of heart arrhythmias among obese people following them.' Sadly for Sarah, such health warnings are too late. 'The double vision suddenly became worse. My doctor referred me to a neurologist. I was devastated — I couldn't stop crying.

'When I explained the programme to my neurologist he was shocked that it was legal. He explained that anything under 800 calories a day may cause damage to both the peripheral and central nervous system — that is the brain and the spinal cord. I was horrified: I had been on 500 calories a day for nine months.' LighterLife denies there is any risk.

The company claims that 'the body doesn't need excess calories, it needs nutrition' and states that very low calorie diets are well proven and have been used for 30 years.

Professor Iain Broom, Chief Medical Advisor to LighterLife, said: 'Without the full details of the case I cannot comment specifically, but there is no evidence to suggest any link between very low calorie diets and demyelination in association with longer term use of this approach to obesity management.

Another side effect, absent from LighterLife literature, is the damage abstaining from food causes to teeth.

But dentist Dr Rob Endicott, 34, admits even he was blinded by the lure of losing so much weight, fast.

'My wife wanted me to try the diet with her, so last spring we both joined,' he says. 'We lost two stone in a month but I couldn't concentrate, which made work impossible.

My wife had beautiful teeth but their condition deteriorated.' It was then that Rob appreciated what was happening. 'It is clinically proven that not eating food increases cavities and worsens gum disease. I've now treated lots of patients on the programme whose dental health diminished.' Despite Rob informing his Lighter- Life counsellor of the problem a year ago, dental care still isn't mentioned by the firm. But then, even on its extensive website there is no side effects section.

Yet when one woman dropped out because she felt ill, her counsellor said: 'That's just one of the side effects — you've got to carry on and get past it.'

Numerous cases have been reported of hair loss, menstrual disorder and — on one occasion — water poisoning when a man drank large amounts to relieve the constipation the liquid diet's lack of fibre can induce.

Undercover journalists also witnessed counsellors accepting clients with eating disorders — though Bar Hewlett, director of LighterLife, defended this policy, saying: 'The National Eating Disorders Association sends people to us who are obese.' The Eating Disorders Association (now called Beat), has denied making any such referrals.

This issue is particularly pertinent given the experience of Christina Massingam — a 19-year-old from Hemel Hempstead who, a year after joining LighterLife, was diagnosed with anorexia. Having read about LighterLife in a magazine last July, Christina — then weighing 22st — considered the diet a life line.

Christina's daily diet consisted of three liquid shakes and a LighterLife fruit bar, amounting to 500 calories.

Physically, the diet was a success — in the first week alone, Christina lost a stone. 'Food was no longer part of my life,' she says. 'The general outlook was that food was "bad" and LighterLife shakes were "good".' After three months, she had lost more than five stone. But in January she lapsed and ate a meal. 'I didn't think it would affect my weight much, but at the next weigh-in I had put on five pounds. The fact I'd put on so much weight after just one meal instilled in me a deep-seated fear of food.' By May, Christina had reached her goal weight of 10st 8lb and her counsellor advised her to start reintroducing conventional foods. BUT Christina was so petrified of putting on weight that, while she cut down on the sachets as directed, she didn't eat any food and lost more weight. Realising Christina was obsessed with her weight, her mother stopped paying LighterLife.

'Without the shakes, I panicked,' says Christina. 'I had been living on liquid for so long I had no idea how to eat healthily.' Christina devised a diet based on 500 calories and began exercising excessively. She became ill frequently and her periods stopped.

In August her mother, desperately worried, had phoned LighterLife for guidance. All that came was a call from a senior representatives reiterating that it was OK to eat food — a promised eating plan never arrived.

Finally Christina, now weighing just 8st 13lb, visited her GP, who diagnosed her with anorexia.

'In September I started counselling with a psychiatrist who says the diet changed my psyche by not allowing me food. I wish now I'd just stuck to a healthy diet. I may have lost 13st, but it's not worth the psychological damage it has caused me.' While the network of 'counsellors' — currently numbering 270 — are trained in counselling and physiology by LighterLife, they are by no means medical experts. In fact, the company's three founders had no medical or healthcare background — two of them met while overweight research subjects for a low calorie diet.

The vociferous director Bar Hewlett has cultivated a public profile and describes herself as an 'accomplished industry speaker' and 'expert on all topics surrounding obesity', yet before establishing LighterLife she had no relevant experience.

But LighterLife, meanwhile, continues to flourish. Of course, obesity is a momentous problem in modern life — in Britain a staggering 24 per cent of adults are clinically obese. Any solution would and should be welcomed. But the emotiveness and enormity of the issue makes it all the more important that people are aware of any risks weight-management programmes involve.

Obesity is no doubt dangerous, but so are some of its apparent solutions.