Let the tapeworms 'live' in you

I know someone who doesn't eat rice for months just to stay in shape. I know someone who has studied various types of diets ( Fat Flush diet, Atkins diet, vegetarian diet, crash diet, etcetera), and finally tried Atkins (she could just bear with it for a few months). I read about people with bulimia and anorexia, who suffer for fearing of weight gain. All wish for a thin and slim body- a typical beauty asset.

Yet, today, I've just come across a strange type (actually it's the strangest one for me so far) of diet people follow in the name of beauty. It's called tapeworm diet. By looking at its name, ermm...well, yes, tapeworms are consumed in order to lose weight.

A nine-inch-long tapeworm that came out of a cat. It was still alive when this picture was taken.
Photo by www.dogbreedinfo.com

This disgusting beauty regimen was popular in England during the 1800s. You might ask, how this weird diet works? The traditional way of becoming infected with a tapeworm is by eating raw meat, being in contact with infected faeces and other foods containing tapeworms. However, for dieting purposes, people would swallow pills containing sanitized tapeworm larvae, which would reside in their stomachs. People become a host, and tapeworms use them by attaching suckers to their stomachs and feeding on the foods they eat. It's like the food you eat is split between your own body and that of tapeworm. After being ingested, the tapeworm makes its way out of the body with bowel movements. People have been known to take drugs to reduce the lifespan of the worms, so when it's removed from the body, it's already dead. Euwww.

Not only it's disgusting, the diet is actually proven to be dangerous to one's health. Tapeworms are foreign living animals, and they are not intelligent or obedient. Tapeworms are also parasites, that can result in vitamin deficiencies. They eat not only your calories, but also the nutrients. Additionally, it's also possible for tapeworms to deviate into other parts of your body through blood system, even your brain, where of course it can have deadly results!

Letting this foreign animal reside in your body can possibly lead to death
Credit to Google

Thankfully this diet is no more in practice nowadays, since its effects to health are disastrous.

P/s: I'm amazed at how far people can go just to stay beautiful.

African body scarification

If in my previous entry, I shared with you guys about tattooing among Maori people, here in this entry, I'm going to let you discover about African scarification. Africans are dark-skinned people, so applying tattoos is not an effective way to decorate their dark-pigmented skin. Hence, they choose another way of beautifying their body- scarification. It is also a symbol of strength, fortitude and courage among both men and women.

Various patterns of body scarifications symbolize strength and courage
Courtesy of Google Image

Scarification involves the process of puncturing or cutting patterns and motifs into the skin epidermis. Different tools are used to produce different types of scars ( cutting, like seriously?). To make the scars more prominent and embellished, ash or other organic saps might be added to a wound. Of course, the whole procedure is very slow and painful. Beautiful and complex designs depend not only on the artist's skills, but also on the person's tolerance to pain. Arghh...imagine having your hand cut with sharp objects. The pain would be unbearable!

Ethiopia Omo Valley Surma tribe doing the scarification
Credit to Google

The first scars a young woman receives are those on her abdomen, as it shows the role of childbearing. As she gets older, designs will be added on her skin and this continues through adulthood. "The main reason for my scars is to attract a male that will give me joy, because I will be beautiful and hopefully get a husband," says one girl from Karo tribe in Africa, when asked in an interview.

Seriously, honestly, If I were that girl, I'd rather not get married than being cut on skin to look beautiful.

Complex designs symbolize higher tolerance to pain
Photo by www.ezakwantu.com

Here I include a video on African scarification:

Lip plates for beauty

What symbolizes beauty in other parts of the world may be something unimaginable by you. In this entry, I'm going to let you discover what beauty is for the tribes in some parts of Africa.

In Africa, lip plates are adornment for women
Photo by www.ezakwantu.com

The original purpose of lip plates, or known as lip plugs or lip discs are to make women unattractive, and they act like a protection to them from Arab slavers. But, as time elapses, this has become a beauty practice in the region. David Livingstone, a British explorer in Africa asked a tribe chief about the reason of women wearing lip plates, and here's his answer: for beauty! They are the only beautiful things women have. Men have beards, women have none. What kind of person she be without Pelele (lip plate)? She would not be a woman at all.

There are actually many types of materials used to make the lip plates such as wood, ivory, clay, bone, shiny metal, shell and sometimes crystal. They could be found in round or trapezoid shapes in various sizes. Well, ermm... I think the sizes differ because not everyone's lips would be similar in size, even after they have elongated.

A woman with a round lip plate
Photo by www.ezakwantu.com

Both upper and lower lips are inserted with lip discs
Photo by www.ezakwantu.com

Here I include a video for you guys to see how a woman with lip plate drinks water:

Girls from Mursi tribe, one of the African tribes, pierce their bottom lips which are stretched so that a clay lip plate can be inserted. They also remove their bottom teeth for esthetic enhancement. Sometimes, after birth, mothers will pierce a child's lip with a thorn (The child must be screaming, right? huhu). The holes are enlarged with stalks of grass until they are about 2 centimeters in diameter and large enough to insert a plug. Increasingly larger discs are inserted into a pierced hole in either the upper or lower lip, or both, thereby stretching it. Lip tissue will elongate and conform to the shape of the implanted objects.

I've always been afraid of being pierced (that's why I've never got my earrings), so, the idea of piercing or elongating your lips is eerily scary. And...for sure, it must be painful. Ouchh!

A Mursi tribe with decorated lip disc
Credit to Google