Wishful Shrinking
Verve|February - March 2020
Pihu Sand made her acting debut as Lata Sharma, a plus-sized singer with stars in her eyes, in Fanney Khan(2018). The 22-year-old gives an honest account of how she was made to gain 20 kgs for the role and then pressured into taking it all off to sustain her relevance in an industry with demanding beauty ideals. Sadaf Shaikh, who continues to struggle with her fitness targets, weighs in...
Wishful Shrinking

I often find myself thinking of ‘firsts’ during my idle daytime musings. How did the first person who decided to keep a pet know exactly which species could be domesticated? Did the first person to chew on their nails feel like they were indulging in a milder form of self-cannibalism? What was going on in the mind of the first person who decided to restrict a primal human need in order to lose weight? ‘First person to go on a diet’, I type curiously into Google, wondering what could’ve prompted someone to deliberately eat less food at a time when a broader girth was indicative of a better quality of life. The search throws up William Banting who, I learn, was a noted 19th-century undertaker. He was prescribed a low-carb, high-fat diet by an inspired doctor when his obesity had forced him into descending stairs backwards to alleviate the stress on his knee joints. Twenty kgs lighter in less than a year, Banting and his impressive weight loss inspired such frenzy amongst his peers that it led to an eponymous diet plan which people still swear by more than 200 years later. I would know. After all, I was one of them.

This story is from the February - March 2020 edition of Verve.

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This story is from the February - March 2020 edition of Verve.

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