This is the heart-wrenching story of Valeria Levitin, the world’s thinnest woman, who weighs a mere four stone after enduring years of extreme dieting.
Instead of seeking sympathy, Valeria uses her frail appearance as a stark warning to girls aspiring to achieve extremely thin figures.
Standing at 5ft 8in, she should ideally weigh between 9st and 12st, based on NHS guidelines. Instead, she weighs only 4st 3lbs, less than half of her minimum healthy weight.
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What is most alarming is that Valeria, originally from Russia and now residing in Monaco, receives fan mail from girls eager to emulate her skeletal appearance.
The 39-year-old revealed to The Sun: “I have received emails from young girls who want me to teach them how to be like me. All the letters I’ve had are from women, mainly in their twenties, who see me as some kind of inspiration.”
In response, Valeria has bravely decided to speak out about her condition and campaign against anorexia, firmly stating she refuses to teach young girls how to die.
Having developed her eating disorder in her teenage years, Valeria now speaks out about how the illness has devastated her life. She aims to share her story to prevent others from suffering the same fate, explaining that anorexia has left her “lonely, unattractive, and repulsive to those around me.”
Valeria attributes the beginnings of her condition to her mother, who was fearful that Valeria would become obese like her relatives. Her diet was restricted from a young age, and she was frequently weighed to ensure she hadn’t gained any weight, driven by her mother’s quest for perfection.
At 16, weighing 10st, Valeria moved to Chicago with her parents. Eager to fit in at a new school, she believed that losing weight would make her accepted and liked. Consequently, she further restricted her diet, eliminating sugar and carbohydrates.
Ironically, after years of cutting out certain foods, her body can no longer tolerate them, even if she wanted to reintroduce them.
A cruel comment from a classmate about Valeria’s figure during a football game intensified her determination to lose weight. She recalls, “We were playing football and during the game a man said, ‘I know how we can win. We need to put Valeria’s big ar*e in the goal.’ It shattered my whole world.”
By age 23, Valeria’s dress size had plummeted from a healthy size 12 to a tiny size 6. Her situation worsened when she decided to pursue modeling, as she was told she was still too fat to succeed. By 24, weighing just six stone, she was banned from dancing over concerns for her safety.
Over the next decade, Valeria consulted more than 30 health specialists and at one point, her weight dropped to a dangerously low 3st 10lbs. Today, she cannot eat certain foods because her body rejects them. She has gone so long without eating bread that she no longer remembers its taste.
Her illness has also led to a very lonely life. Single for ten years, she finds relationships difficult since she cannot engage in typical couple activities like dining out.
Valeria now believes that the solution isn’t simply medical treatment but addressing the “lack of harmony between body and soul.”
She currently takes supplements to mitigate the risk of bruising and avoids situations where she might fall. She believes the answer might lie in moving back to Moscow, where she feels more at peace, and pursuing her lifelong dream of becoming a mother through surrogacy.
The desire to have a child could potentially motivate her to regain her health. “I would love to have a family because I feel I have so much to give. But obviously, it wouldn’t be right to have a baby when I am ill. It wouldn’t be fair on the child. I want to stand up to anorexia. I’ve never given up on anything in my life, and I’m not about to give up now,” she asserts.
