From: "De Telegraaf", Monday 9 December 1996:

Success made Kate Dillon an anorexia patient. 
"Model puts happiness on the balance"

NEW YORK - Models have to be slim, or rather: skinny. As a successful model with the renowned agency Elite, the 1.76 meter (5'10") Kate Dillon weighed 54 kilo (119 pounds). She barely ate, lived on coffee, and cigarettes and was constantly moody and tired. Her life was completely controlled by the balance: Kate suffered from anorexia.

The hectic live as a model became more and more difficult to cope with. Elite sent her to Paris, where she worked more than 12 hours a day. Both physically as mentally, the 19 year old Kate  became more and more a wreck. "Paris was sapping. When I finished work at 9 p.m., I went jogging for hours through the city to burn some calories. I was smoking already two packs of cigarettes a day and felt myself becoming weaker and weaker. But I was determined not to give up.
Before Kate was discovered in her home town San Diego, she had been terrorised by her school mates because she was too plump. "When I was 12 years old, my class mates jumped up and down the school bus yelling: "Overweight Kate, Overweight Kate" I changed schools, but it didn't help."
I decided that I no longer wanted to be fat. It was too difficult, I couldn't stand the prejudices and pestering any more. I read somewhere that Stephanie Seymour weighed 56 kilos (123 pounds), and I still remember vividly that I thought: "That's how I should become too." When a photographer discovered Kate at the age of 17, she only weighed 130 pounds. Besides she developed a serious eating disorder.
Kate had a terrific career: she was the face of L'Oréal and she glittered on the cover of Elle, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. Soon she weighed less than her big example, Stephanie Seymour. "From the moment that my model career really lifted off, I started dieting even more. I knew that I had to lose at least 11 pounds more to have the emaciated looks that the fashion industry loves so much."
Two years ago, she could not cope any longer. With the help of a dietician, she gained 7 pounds - the end of her model career with Elite. "I weighed 57 kilos (126 pounds) and one fashion editor after the other told me that I has to lose weight. Ridiculous of course, but at that time, I was so vulnerable that I didn't realise how absurd that demand was."
Health resort
When Kate weighed 60 kilos (132 pounds), she was sent to a health resort by her modelling agency to lose weight. She lost a few pounds, but not enough. Her agent accused her of 'not trying hard enough'. Clients started complaining and did no longer want to work with Kate who, according to them, looked "terribly fat". Kate collapsed.
She went back to San Diego and gained more than 44 pounds. But she refused to hate herself for these extra pounds. "I could no longer miss all the energy that I spilled all those years." These new attitude turned to be a turning point.
"Suddenly I realised: I don't have to be a model. I don't have to be thin. This was an enormous relief. But even though, it took me a lot of effort to give up my idealised image. I thought that only thin people could be attractive. It took me more than one year to realise that I was not made to be thin. Slowly I started realising that my appearance is less important than who I am."
Seven months ago, Kate returned to New York for a teaching education. She went looking for a job to pay her college ship, and a friend asked her why she didn't start as a model again: as a plus model. Kate reacted sceptically, but when she entered Wilhelmina Models, a big New York model agency, she could start straight away. 
Now, 8 months later, the 22-year old Kate is 'the face' of Liz Claiborne's plus size fashion line. "It was very scary to step into the modelling world again. I wondered whether I could cope. Wouldn't I get anorectic again?"
But modelling is addictive. Kate earns about 350 dollar per hour, more than a lot of her skinny colleagues. "At work, I hear other models constantly talking about diets. It can make me so sad. What a waste of energy. Imagine what these women could do if they use all the energy that they now spill on hard dieting, for more important things.
Since a few months, Kate has a problems corner on the Internet. On Style Channel, an on-line version of the fashion magazine W, she answers E-mails from girls with weight problems and eating disorders. "My message is that you must allow your self not to be perfect. It is human to have weaknesses and to make from time to time a mess out of it. Give your self the freedom to be plump - it is madness to all try to look the same."