ASPIRING MODELS FANCY DRUGS TO MAINTAIN FIGURE

VADODARA: Smoke, dope and keep fit. Enter the new Vadodara, where the
Generation Next is ready to go to any extent to maintain the lean,
mean and sexy look. Forget gyms and workouts. That's passe.

The new and alarming trend to reduce your calorie intake is to smoke
and indulge in drugs - an easy way to drastically cut down your
appetite, and thus the fastest way to get slim.

What was once associated with junkies is fast becoming a fad among
young women wanting to make a mark on the glamour circuit.

Smoking, using designer drugs - speed, ecstasy or crack cocaine, acid,
grass, LSD, cannabis, ganja, smack, pills and PSP are in vogue both
for figure maintaining and style sake.

"Some of my clients from the city are into modelling and have made a
career in Mumbai. Many of them are addicted to smoking and doping.
They have told me that the reason for their addiction is to maintain
the figure since it diminishes their hunger for food and also lends
the 'model' image", said psychotherapist and counsellor Gautam Amin.
According to him, their number is on the rise.

Food and nutrition expert Ninaz Ankleshwaria confirms smoking and
doping drastically reduces appetite.

"I am not surprised that young figure-conscious women aspiring for
glamour industry smoke or dope to cut down on calorie intake", she
said.

Kedar Kadam, fashion designer and head of Academy of Fashion design,
Skool, links the smoking habit and drug addiction of young women to
style as well as desire for a slimmer body. "Both aspiring and
established models dope and smoke to be a part of the high society
party circuit.

The city has shades of Bombay culture. These days one can easily get
designer drugs and indulging in such practices is stylish", Kadam said.

He added fashion designers, too, are addicts. "There are fashion
designers who take opium because that helps them to concentrate better
and ward off fatigue. Smoking and doping is a fad among designers",
Kadam said.

Rakesh Trivedi of Fiesta International, a company dealing in talent
promotions, inhouse fashion and entertainment shows, also confirms the
trend. "I interact with models very often. They would not admit it but
it's not difficult to know that they smoke or dope, sometimes simply
to sport a 'bindaas' attitude", he said.

"I know of cases where women dope and smoke to maintain figures.An
easy way to spot such cases is to visit some spots like Fatehgunj and
Sayajigunj", adds clinical psychologist Shilpa Kadam.

Young models discount the charge saying that it is wrong to generalise
that all women aspiring for the glamour industry smoke or indulge in
drugs.

However, a model and TV actress from the city who works in Mumbai told
TOI that she smokes and occasionally dopes. "I smoke because it
relaxes me. Sometimes during parties I also dope. This is a common
practice in Bombay and now even in Vadodara. But I know my limits. I
am not doing anything wrong. I am honest about my liking and if my
smoking helps me reduce my food intake that's fine with me, my figure
needs it", she said.

Health experts nonetheless warn that smokers or dopers are inviting
longterm ill effects for shortterm gains since such addiction leads to
cardiac trouble, respiratory tract infection and hypertension.