Mother Knows Best

The concept started on a whim – a web site dealing with anorexia. But New Berlin’s Heather Blessington, now known as the controversial blogger “mamaVISION,” soon found the subject was a life-and-death matter for many.

Blessington was a model at age 16 in Paris and Milan. “I spent the next five years exercising my body to the bone, restricting my diet to nearly nothing.” That was 22 years ago, when size 8 was the ideal. Now size 2 or even 0 is the goal for models and the young women who emulate them.

Anorexia is hip. Newsweek reports there are more than 200 pro-anorexia Web sites, building a culture around a disease. Girls wear red bead bracelets to signal their “membership.” Meanwhile the mortality rate of anorexics is 12 times that of peers – and the suicide rate 60 times higher.

Blessington, now married with two small children and a very full-time job in Web site development, felt she had to do something about the problem. Her response, mamavision.com, soon got a plug from backinskinnyjeans.com, a prominent
California Web site, and she began to hear from many young women and their parents.

The tone of mamaVISION is both angry and tender. Angry at the media that makes the skin-and-bones look a standard of beauty. (Her mock ad “How to Make Your Daughter Anorexic” is a classic.) And tender when responding to confused girls who need help. She’s the mama they need.

One girl, from Scotland, writes of her heartbreaking desire “to be able to walk instead of being stuck on bed rest,” and closes her e-mail “MamaV i love ya!” There’s a picture attached, a sweet young face marred only by her feeding tube.

Today, Blessington, whose powerful whim has attracted the book interests of New York publishers, is lean and fit – and doesn’t own a scale. “I am what I am, and I look pretty damn good for my age.” It’s the same self-assurance mamaV passes on to her many readers.