Starving to be cool

If you only had enough money left at the end of the month to buy either your groceries for the week or the latest pair of designer shoes, which would you go for? If this seems a difficult question to answer then chances are you could have “fashiorexia”.
Almost a third of UK women would starve for their fashion, while half of them are spending more on clothes and accessories each month than they are on food. These shocking findings are from a survey conducted by celebrity fashion website Mycelebrityfashion.co.uk – prompting the new diet phrase “fashiorexia”.
So far this summer, British women have been gorging themselves on fashion not food, with nearly half admitting to spending more on looking good than eating. 18 per cent said that they spent more than half of their wages each month on clothes and accessories.
Despite the credit crunch and reports that the public are now spending less on non-essential items, 49 per cent of fashion hungry shoppers are spending more on their appearance on a monthly basis than they are on food, according to the study of 4,315 women by the celebrity style website.
For most of us, if it came down to a choice of whether to buy food for the week or whether to buy a new top, you’d like to think the vast majority would be sensible and buy food. However, 32 per cent of women said that they would actually prefer to go without food if it meant making a fashion purchase and they even went so far as to confess to being “fashiorexic”.
Even more worryingly, 28 per cent of women see nothing wrong with this lifestyle and even say their fashion “diet” keeps their weight in check. Unfortunately, they are not alone in their view as 52 per cent of 18-25 year-olds also agree that spending their money on the latest trends instead of food is a good way of watching their weight.
With endless images of stick-thin celebrities in newspapers and magazines it seems the younger generation have also been influenced to put their looks before their health. More than 70 per cent of women aged 18-25 spend £150 or more, per month on clothing and accessories, while 16 per cent spend more than half their wages on looking good.
However, it’s not just the young that have these reckless attitude towards their health as 21 per cent of women in their 30s spend more than half of their wages on fashion purchases too, and more than half of these women admit to spending more on fashion than eating.
Speaking about the results, celebrity fashion website MyCelebrityFashion.co.uk Head Fashionista, Jill Tovey, says: “Fashion is clearly still a thriving industry, despite the economy. More people search for the best deals and bargains online rather than traipse the high streets and clearly are enjoying themselves whilst doing it. With regards to ‘fashiorexia’ I and MyCelebrityFashion would never advocate eating unhealthily for the sake of fashion and believe in balance.”
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good but not at the expense of your health, after all what good will a wardrobe of nice clothes be when you’re too sick to wear them?

Picture caption: So that’s where this week’s food budget went.