(this is an email i sent suzy a little over a week ago.
to date, i have not received a response.)
I want to preface this by saying that you are a serious inspiration to me on so many levels. I love your videos and being able to support your art when I can (I bought one of your blue morphos off Etsy! He’s gorgeous!!), and your tireless work ethic really motivates me in my own life. I can’t thank you enough for all that you do.
I’m telling you this to let you know right off the bat that this message is not coming from a place of hatred. Quite the opposite, actually. That being said, I wanted to bring up something from your newest video where you discussed all the problems you’ve been going through with your thyroid.
In the video, you detailed how your thyroid has been affecting your weight, and it totally makes sense to me how frustrating it must be to have to work so much harder to lose weight. However, I was absolutely shocked to hear how low you restricted your calorie intake. I understand that it was a “test” to see if your thyroid really was causing the problem, but going down to 700 calories a day — which is close to HALF of the MINIMUM of what someone is supposed to be consuming in a day — for close to a month is very, very dangerous.
Now, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. I honestly can’t, because I have a huge bias in this situation: I’m 20 years old, and I’ve been battling anorexia since I was 10. I just want to give you my perspective on what you detailed in this video. Something to consider.
I’m sure you’re well aware of how the media constantly makes women, and young women, and even little girls feel awful about their bodies. Likewise, I’m sure you know that your audience consists of a lot of teenagers - mostly girls, I would imagine, but hey, boys are affected by eating disorders and negative body image too. So, when I hear you saying that you restricted yourself to 700 calories every single day for three weeks because you just weren’t losing weight, I think about your audience, the hundred thousand people you’re delivering this message to, and I worry.
I worry that some young person, who is already feeling bad about their body or believes that they, too, aren’t losing weight as quickly as they’d like to, is watching. I worry that they see you - a gorgeous literal model, with a figure they would love to have - not being satisfied with your current weight, and I worry that they might think to themselves, “Oh, well if Suzy thinks she needs to lose weight, then I definitely do.” I worry that they will try to do the same amount of restriction that you did. Honestly, I worry that they will take the first steps into developing a full-fledged eating disorder.
That’s how it happened to me.
It’s pretty clear from the video that you don’t necessarily endorse a diet of a mere 700 calories a day, but honestly, there’s a not a huge push in the other direction either. Besides you saying “That’s insane!”, there’s no warning of how dangerous a diet like that is. There’s no message of “please don’t try to replicate this, especially if you’re young and your body is still developing”. There’s really not much of anything dissuading someone who’s already feeling down on their body image from following in your footsteps.
Like I said, this is just something to consider. You have a really large audience that watches you, and I think it’s important to think critically about the kind of messages you might be sending to impressionable minds without ever even realizing it.
In any case, I really sincerely wish you all the best with your thyroid issues. The whole ordeal sounds incredibly scary and stressful, so I will definitely be thinking of you and I hope that everything ends up working out well for you. Thank you so, so much for taking the time to read this.