Yamada Mariya talked about talked about the difficulties she faced as a gravure model

Yamada Mariya is one of the well-known Japanese gravure models from the ’90s.  The model recently announced her return as a YouTuber to showcase her and her family.

In an interview with Fujinkoron, Yamada gave insight of how challenging it was for her to be a gravure model.

Yamada said, “I couldn’t get out of the bathroom, while at work, when I first debuted in 1996.  I was 15-years-old and I only wore a school swimsuit, but suddenly, I started working in gravure.  I was on the cover of 200 magazines a year and I had a lot of work on TV and radio programs.  When I was shooting gravure, I went to Saipan about five times in two months.  I was very lucky, but I didn’t have much time off.  I had a history of dropping out of high school and getting into the office in order to support my divorced mother and my younger brother who was under the age of ten at the time.  I was so afraid of getting fired that I was desperate to secure my place”.

Yamada talked about pains she suffered, “After awhile, I started to suffer from chronic physical upsets.  As the number of food rep jobs increased, I was gaining more and more weight.  At travel locations and hot spring locations, you have to keep eating regardless of your appetite.  I was stressed and escaped to sweets instead of alcohol because I was a minor and I continued to feel tired, cold, had stiff shoulders, swelling and severe menstrual cramps.  It was difficult because the manager changed every year, because of the office policy, there was no one I could tell about my problems.  When it comes to building a relationship of trust, it was hard because the person in charge was replaced every time.  Also, all the managers are men, so I couldn’t really talk about my body.  When I was 20-years-old I thought, “This might be really strange.When I have a drink, then I feel sick.  Rather than getting sick, my stomach and intestines start to ache and I rush to the bathroom.  Nausea would come and I couldn’t get out of the bathroom for about 30 minutes.  At work, I would say to them, “I’m a little anemic”, so I took care not to get my clothes dirty and kept staying in the bathroom many times.  It seemed that people around me thought I wouldn’t come out of the bathroom because I had some problems mentally.  But I felt sick like a hangover and the main symptoms were vomiting, repeated diarrhea, constipation and frequent severe abdominal pain”.

“I suspected I may have had Crohn’s Diseas.  On one stage at the even of Chiaki Raku, I collapsed due to acute appendicitis. I was taken straight to the hospital, dropped all my makeup and I was on the operating table.  I had a swollen cecum.  However, the nausea still persisted after the operation.  I was discharged form the hospital for the time being, because my next job was coming up and two weeks later, I was heading to Sapporo for a food report.  I had planned to eat sushi, soft-serve, melon bread that morning but I felt I had nausea, abdominal pain and chills and collapsed again.  I returned to Tokyo immediately and went to the hospital where I had surgery. I have had many tests but they couldn’t find anything wrong.  Then the doctor in charge said, ‘It’s not a definitive diagnosis but we need to do more research, but looking at the symptoms, we suspect Crohn’s Disease’.  When I heard that it may be Crohn’s Disease, I felt I have been diagnosed with an intractable disease and there is no silver bullet.  I was taking a drug called Pentasa, which is prescribed for Crohn’s Disease but it did not improve anything.  Not wanting to see me depressed, my friend invited me to travel to Okinawa and said, ‘no matter the illness, I want you to have the least amount of stress’. It was eight years after my debut and it was my first vacation.  I wanted to enjoy it as much as I could but by the second day, I was stuck due to severe pain in my stomach and back, so my trip was canceled. My friend who accompanied me had recommended me to go to an acupuncturist in Tokyo known as “God Hand”.

“I couldn’t digest anything. Food was not moving through my stomach to my intestines.  I was eating too much and I had an incurable disease.  So, I tried skipping meals for the next three days.  So, I went to the acupuncture after the three days and asked him to apply acupuncture to my entire body so I would not have much acid in my stomach.  That day, I had a feeling that my stomach and intestines were starting to move, even though I didn’t eat anything.  On the second day, I had a lot of black fecal impaction.  On the third day, I felt the lightness of my body as if I had wings growing on my back.  I felt the chronic symptoms of my headaches, stiff shoulders and abdominal pain had disappeared.  The acupuncturist said, ‘In modern times, food culture has developed and delicious food can be eaten anytime.  But the human body which digests it has not yet caught up with that evolution”.

“In order to regain the ability to absorb carbohydrates, I refrained from eating bread and noodles made from rice and flour for a year and a half, I chewed dozens of times to eat and breakouts that had been a problem disappeared.I didn’t even eat fastfood which I loved.  I was surprised how food affected not only the body but the brain.  I would allow at least three hours between eating and going to bed and I faithfully keep to this.  I also make sure there is 18 hours from dinner to breakfast, so I can rest my stomach well while sleeping”.

You can read more of the interview on Fujinkoron.

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