Dying to be Healthy, by Sia Barbi

The Barbi Twins were catapulted to fame in the late 1980s. Born in 1963, identical twins Sia and Shane Barbi were unique for their Barbie doll like proportions of over-sized breasts, impossibly tiny waists and long, blond hair.

Although they'd been modeling since they were seven years old, it wasn't until 1989 that they became worldwide phenomenons when a cover story by the LA Times appeared on a billboard on Sunset Boulevard.

Before too long, they were starring on the cover of Playboy Magazine with the 1991 September issue breaking record by selling out in two weeks. Even Prince William was said to be a fan.


At the height of their fame they suddenly withdrew from the public eye. Secretly they had been battling with the eating disorder, bulimia which very nearly killed Sia. It was around this time that the twins decided to dedicate their time towards recovery, learning in detail about food and its effects on the body. After getting degrees in nutrition and health they are now well respected spokespersons on eating disorders, giving lectures at packed out universities and high schools around the US.

Dying to be Healthy is not an autobiography. When the Twins first decided to write a book, it was to be on health and nutrition. However they realized that it was just as important for them to include their reasons as to why they became so interested in this subject area. Because they had abused their bodies with food for so long, they wanted to be able to pass on what they had learned with the hope of helping not just other eating disorder sufferers, but anyone with a problematic relationship towards food.

The book written back in 2001, is actually a helpful nutritional reference source including much of the sort of information which is being churned out in volumes being written today. We are given lots of facts about vitamins and minerals and how they benefit the body and the best food sources to fine them. They discuss the importance of fat in our diet and its relation to metabolism and outline exercises to suit individual circumstances. A chapter is dedicated to menus where the Barbis have included some of their favorite recipes used in recovery as well as plans for popular diets.

Interspersed throughout the book are small snippets of the Barbis' battles with bulimia in the form of ‘scary diet diet stories’. It's through these that we get to learn a little about their lives with the eating disorder and some of the extreme diets they endured along with the measures they took to counteract the enormous food binges they had. The stories aren't told in any sort of chronological order, but aimed to fit into whichever section on nutrition a chapter is focusing on. In one sentence they say, ‘there is so much pressure to be pretty, popular and thin for a young teen today.’ Sadly, it seems nothing much has changed in that respect.

Some of the most interesting sections are the question and answer chapters. Among these there is something amost everyone could identify with. Typical questions are along the lines of ‘what was the most fanatical diet you’ve tried?’ or ‘is there hope for a person who has been obese all her life?’ The twins answer these with a positive approach, basing their answers on either their own experience or on what they’ve learned through study.

Although we don’t get to find out much about the life story of the Barbi twins, we are given a fascinating insight into how they both suffered almost identically with bulimia. Bulimia sufferers do their utmost to keep it a secret. But since these two were twins, obviously they both knew about the other. As such all their binges, vomiting and laxative abuse were done in unison. They even planned the times they would take their laxatives so they wouldn't have to rush to the toilet at the same time.

This probably isn't a book you'd buy purely as a nutritional self help guide, although it does the job very well. It's more likely to intrigue anyone who has an eating disorder and wants to find out how other people cope with it, especially when it concerns a celebrity, or two in this case. Each chapter is only a few pages long and it's written in a chatty and informative style with all the medical information being explained in a clear and easy to read manner.

Overall, Dying to be Healthy provides a great deal of valuable and useful information for anyone interested in health and nutrition. Furthermore, it's a useful self help guide and source of inspiration to those suffering from eating disorders, in particular bulimia. But possibly the overriding factor is the sad reflection on the pressure for girls and women to look perfect and the devastating and long lasting consequences that result when an eating order strikes.

Paperback: 191 pages
Publisher: Triumph Books
Copyright: 2001, Shame and Sia Barbi
Language English
ISBN-10: 1-892049-42-2