PEOPLES DAILY, FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2014
PAGE 31
Strange World
‘Giraffe woman’ wants to extend her neck by encasing it in copper rings
to extend her neck by wearing no less than 11 copper rings around it. The idea stemmed from her lifelong fascination with body modification, especially the tribal women of Thailand and
Burma who encase their necks in rings at an early age. “I’ve always had a long neck,” said Sydney. “In middle school, they called me ‘giraffe girl’. Then I saw pictures of the long-necked tribes in Thailand and Burma in National Geographic and I became fascinated with them.” That’s when she began to cut up coat hangers and wrap them around her neck at bed time. Naturally, her parents thought the idea was ridiculous. But she persisted, and she believes that her night-time ritual actually helped elongate her neck. “After a few years, it became obvious that my neck was longer than the other girls, but not freakishly,” said Sydney. “So I stopped for a while to consider if being a long-necked woman was what I really wanted.” But soon, it became clear to her that she was quite attached to the rings. “I had missed the comfort from the pressure on the top of my neck and shoulders and had been thinking about doing it again for a while. The comfort and exhilaration of this process was really what I was after.” So in 2011, Sydney started wearing a tight-fitting copper necklace made specifically to her requirements. She took it slow and added an extra ring when she needed it. But she’s always been rather shy about displaying her neck rings. When she lived in Maryland, she used to wear thick turtleneck sweaters to hide them. She also chose restaurant jobs behind the scenes to avoid
So the Schaubs went on a complete sugar-free diet for a year. “We cut out anything with an added sweetener, be it table sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, agave or fruit juice,” Eve said. “We also excluded anything made with fake sugar or sugar alcohols. Unless the sweetness was attached to its original source (e.g., a piece of fruit), we didn’t eat it.” And once they started looking, they found sugar in the most amazing places: tortillas, sausages, chicken, broth, salad dressing, cold cuts, crackers, mayonnaise, bacon, bread and even baby food. “Why all of this added sugar? To make these items more palatable, add shelf life, and make packaged food production even cheaper.” It must have been very tough for Eve to convince her husband and especially her two young children to follow the regime. While her husband was supportive, the kids were a totally different ballgame. “Immediately, they started bawling,” said Eve. “They knew this meant birthdays and Halloween and play dates and Christmas would all be different. As a mother, the last thing you want to do is make your kids
cry!” The first day was the worst, but as time went by the girls adjusted pretty well. Surprisingly, the Schaubs didn’t lose any weight in their year-of-nosugar. But they weren’t really looking to do that in the first place. “The last thing I wanted to do was focus on losing weight,” said Eve. “We did notice other changes. Our palates changed over time. Things that were sweet began to taste different to us and really repellent by the fall. Things that normally looked very appealing looked obscene and disgusting. We felt healthier, it seemed like we got less sick, like we got better faster or got milder colds. My kids missed significantly less school.” “During our year of no sugar, one of the rules was that, as a family, we could have one actual sugarcontaining dessert per month; if it was your birthday, you got to choose the dessert. By the time September rolled around, we noticed our palates starting to change and slowly, we began enjoying our monthly treat less.” Eve recalled the time when her husband requested a decadent multi-layered banana cream pie
Sydney V. Smith
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8-year-old Sydney V. Smith’s goal in life is to become a ‘giraffe woman’. For the past three years, the Los Angeles resident has been trying
unwanted attention. Soon, Sydney’s neck muscles couldn’t support the weight of her head without the rings. At this point, she needed to make a decision – to wear the rings forever or get rid of them. “I asked myself, ‘Should I stop or should I go for it?’ knowing that I would be enslaved to a ringed necklace for the rest of my life,” she said. But after attending a Lady Gaga concert, Sydney was finally able to decide. “Her freak empowerment message made a special kind of sense for me. I figure if she can wear meat dresses, I can be a giraffe woman.” The rings that Sydney wears were customized by a friend. They are soldered around her neck, but feature a special screw so they can be detached in case of medical emergencies. But as far as she’s concerned, they are permanently attached. “He managed to do it safely, though I did get burned a little,” she said. She estimates that her neck might be 10 to 11 inches long, thanks to the elongating effect of the rings. As much as Sydney loves her neck rings, they do come with their own inconveniences. “I don’t have the normal range of motion I once did. It makes driving a little hard, but my peripheral vision improved,” she said. “It took a while to learn to sleep with them, but now if I take them off, my neck feels limp.” And neck sweat is another major issue. “If it’s summer and the air
conditioner isn’t working, my neck starts to sweat and I start to smell,” Sydney revealed. And then there are the medical issues and health risks associated with the rings. Dr. Jonathan Nissanoff, an orthopedic surgeon from Southern California, said that he doesn’t recommend anyone doing this because it could injure the nerves in the neck. “If she’s finished growing, then all she’s doing is stretching her skin or putting the bones into traction by pulling them apart. The rings aren’t going to make her bones longer. Once she removes them, her neck will come back to size.” But nothing’s stopping Sydney – she’s actually contemplating adding a 12th ring. She also hopes to make some money out of her unique physique. “I’d like to work as a specialty model, but my original intent was not to exploit myself,” she said. “However, it seems to be my calling.” Well, we’re not sure if she’ll make it as a model, but she’s quite deserving of a place on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Thailand’s Kayan tribe has been a regular feature on the show. They even filmed one of the tribal women taking her rings off. It didn’t kill her, but she sure had a severely scarred neck with smelly mold growing all over it. Sydney does realize that she’s risking her health, but she’s tempted with the possibility of becoming a fashion icon. “You’d be surprised at how many women see me and ask where they can get it done,” she said.
American family goes sugar-free for a whole year
W
hen Eve Schaub came across some disturbing information about the effects of sugar, she felt that she had to do something about it, for her family. She had read that sugar is the number one ingredient making Americans fat and sick. It’s because of sugar that one in seven Americans has metabolic syndrome, one in three is obese and the rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease are skyrocketing. With this newfound knowledge, Eve decided to formulate a special plan for herself, her husband and her two daughters, aged 6 and 11. Eve wanted to see how hard it would be to have her family go through an entire year avoiding foods that contain sugar of any kind. “Call me crazy, but avoiding added sugar for a year struck me as a grand adventure,” Eve said. I was curious as to what would happen. I wanted to know how hard it would be, what interesting things could happen, how my cooking and shopping would change. After continuing my research, I was convinced removing sugar would make us all healthier.”
The Schaubs
for his birthday. She was surprised to find that she couldn’t enjoy her slice at all. “I couldn’t even finish it,” she said. “It tasted sickly sweet to
my now sensitive palate. It actually made my teeth hurt. My head began to hurt and my heart began to race; I felt awful.”