Brittany Murphy dead at 32

I'll readily admit that I jumped on the "EVERYONE'S AN ASSHOLE KILL THEM ALL" crazy-train after reading Thano6's comment and brought up some things that weren't even addressed, and I can completely see where you're coming from, RB. I've never actually seen someone my age that was dangerously underweight even by medical standards, so I have no basis for what 'sickly thin' actually looks like. On that same token, I go to an art school and am completely surrounded by waifish hipsters at every turn, so it could be that after a while I stopped looking at people as "possibly sickly-thin" and just started seeing them as thin.

For me, I don't feel like it's my place to infer about her life or comment on her health because I don't know anything about either aside from the movie of hers that I've seen and some pictures floating around on the internet: neither of which, I feel, are strong enough to make a case in either direction.

Bamshalam wrote:

I've never actually seen someone my age that was dangerously underweight even by medical standards, so I have no basis for what 'sickly thin' actually looks like.

My only basis for "sickly thin" comes from a lot of the stuff I see used as 'thinspiration' on pro-ana sites. A lot of that is either heavily 'shooped, or... yeah.

Also, Isabelle Caro... now she is 'sickly-thin'... and she's anorexic. The late Brittany Murphy... I don't know.

Here's Isabelle Caro, who is recovering from anorexia, on CBS News.

Bamshalam wrote:

On that same token, I go to an art school and am completely surrounded by waifish hipsters at every turn, so it could be that after a while I stopped looking at people as "possibly sickly-thin" and just started seeing them as thin.

Same with me... my community college has a LOT of very thin teenage girls going to it... they're tiny! I don't think they are anorexic, but then again, I don't know... they're just thin. I see some 'average- to slightly above average-weight' girls who are maybe around my weight, but not as many as you'd think, really... and some bigger women who are around my age or slightly older, probably.

Bamshalam wrote:

For me, I don't feel like it's my place to infer about her life or comment on her health because I don't know anything about either aside from the movie of hers that I've seen and some pictures floating around on the internet: neither of which, I feel, are strong enough to make a case in either direction.

Same with me. Her heart attack could have been caused by any number of things.

I have seen sickly-thin anorexics. The school I work for has a lot of students with mental problems. One girl latched onto me last year (why, I have no clue) and told me that she used to be anorexic, but she was over it now. Then she told me that her birthday was the following week and she needed to lose a few pounds, so she wasn't consuming anything but water until then (just a thought, but I don't think she'd gotten over the anorexia). She had a figure very much like Brittany Murphy's in that picture (hence my question about whether Murphy was anorexic).

It is possible, though, for some people to be very thin normally. My sister eats constantly and is still very slender (though not as thin as the anorexic student or Brittany Murphy). My mother was the same way up until menopause.

I think it's a valid question. Far too many female celebrities are anorexic or close to it, and anorexia can damage the heart (as can a number of other conditions).