Dangerous Beauty. How Victoria’s Secret angels starved themselves for the super show

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is a real show, which is centered on glittering girls parading down the catwalk in gorgeous lingerie. Tall and thin models, who are called angels, undergo a strict selection process and have to follow a strict discipline in order not to be overboard.

Adriana Lima’s Liquid Diet

Adriana Lima has been an angel longer than other models – she participated in Victoria’s Secret shows for 19 years! In 2012, the girl revealed the secrets of preparation for the super show, which amazed and outraged the public.

In normal times Lima does not sit on diets, eats often and a little, does sports. In her diet is a lot of fruits and vegetables, eggs, dairy products, meat and fish and absolutely no flour, fast food and convenience foods. Lima has a sweet tooth, but tries to eat more honey and less chocolate. However, before the show of lingerie supermodel sat on a diet, which is not called other than extreme.

Nine days before the show Lima stopped eating solid food and switched to protein shakes, as well as increased the number of workouts to two per day and drank 3.5 liters of water per day. Two days before the show, she would cut back on fluids, and 12 hours before the show she would stop drinking altogether.

“I wouldn’t recommend such a diet to anyone, you can get the same results in other ways. I can’t say that such a diet will affect her health in the long run, but she is hardly getting all the nutrients she needs at this time. I think she’s not feeling well these days either. Adriana could eat something and still perform just as well on the podium,” says nutritionist Mike Rousselle.

Hard work or voluntary self-mockery?

Angels are associated with hard work, exhausting workouts and diets. Victoria’s Secret has been criticized many times for its overly strict weight and fat percentage requirements for models. Not many models can fulfill these requirements, let alone ordinary girls. “They never take models with shapes, it’s getting old. This whole situation with exhausting fees before the show is just outrageous! I have girlfriends who have gone through this selection process. They had to go to extreme lengths just to get on the show, but they couldn’t live that lifestyle on a regular basis because they could die,” admits model Robin Lawley, who was once not cast in Victoria’s Secret.

The company tried to justify that girls voluntarily choose such a life. “I remember one model asked me why she didn’t make it to the show this year, to which I told her: I watch your Instagram and see you hanging out in clubs every night. Meanwhile, Adriana Lima is jumping rope for three hours straight. Our girls are getting more and more physical. We don’t make them do it, they compete with each other,” explained Victoria’s Secret marketing director Ed Razek.

However, Razek appears to be lying. For example, ex-angel Erin Heatherton admitted that the company forced her to lose weight. She followed a strict diet and worked out like a curse until she realized her body couldn’t take it. “I was depressed because I was working hard, but my body was fighting it. I remember coming home after a workout one day, staring at my dinner and thinking, ‘Maybe I should just not eat at all,'” she shared. After working her last show in 2013, she left Victoria’s Secret.

I struggled with my body image and tried to fit the perfect picture. But I’m not perfect. What I once thought was a failure has become an awakening. I’m no longer hiding behind an artificially created version of myself.

Another former model, Bridget Malcolm, has driven herself to anorexia. She once prided herself on working out around the clock and consuming no more than 800 kcal a day, but this led to digestive problems, hair loss and mental breakdown. She is now undergoing treatment and trying to get back to a healthy lifestyle. “I used to think it was okay to eat only protein shakes and vegetables, but this is not okay. I regret advising such a diet in my interviews,” Bridget admits.

Don’t starve yourself!

Interestingly, Victoria’s Secret is going through some bad times right now. TV broadcast of the famous show, around which a few years ago there was a huge excitement, had to be canceled, because it ceased to be profitable. Common sense prevailed, and the public voted with their money against the imposed standards of beauty.

The company’s views on the parameters of models have long been outdated – anorexia is no longer in vogue, and more and more designers create, inspired by real female figures, rather than imposed stereotypes. Now it is not accepted to be ashamed of excess weight and cellulite, and Victoria’s Secret began to yield to firms that create beautiful and comfortable lingerie for both skinny girls and girls in the body.

Once angels seemed to be the embodiment of the ideal, but it is scary to think what price they had to pay for universal adoration. Let on the catwalk models shone and seemed to be real perfection, behind the scenes hid torment and suffering, which not all survived without consequences.

The sad experience of former Victoria’s Secret models shows that you should not starve yourself for the sake of unattainable ideal. Moreover, ideal appearance is a subjective concept. After all, beauty is not in a thin waist or long legs, but in a cheerful sparkle of eyes and a joyful smile. And health is much more important than standards imposed by someone.