of thin is in for singapore youth (fauzi rassull)

Thin is in for Singapore youth: Fauzi Rassull is a slim 20-year-old blogger, popular among Singapore's fashionable youngsters, who flaunts his 1.73-metre (5-foot 8-inch), 60-kilogram (132-pound) frame in glamour shots splashed on his sites.

Followers share tips on eating and Fauzi himself swears by his regimen of two meals a day consisting of bread, instant noodles and salad.

Thanks in part to anti-fat advocates like Fauzi, thin is in among Singapore teens and young adults, but experts warn that the fad is behind a worrying spike in the number of people developing eating disorders.

"I don't see myself as thin, I don't think I'm thin now," he insisted, saying he was aiming to cut his weight down to 53 kilograms.

Fauzi's dream weight would put him below the healthy range of the Body Mass Index (BMI) system used in many countries to measure fat.

At that weight, Fauzi, who does not hold a regular job and sells ads on his blog, would be risking "nutritional deficiency diseases and osteoporosis" based on the BMI scale of the Singapore Health Promotion Board, a government agency.

Fauzi, whose blog "The Male Bitch" was voted Singapore's most popular blog for four consecutive weeks in 2009, denies he is encouraging anorexia, which afflicts many Asian youngsters.