*Terrorists*

"On 15 March 2003, I woke up unable to breathe and was rushed to casualty. My heart was racing and I was hallucinating. I was terrified but also pleased, because my pro-ana friends would be in awe of me.”

That’s right. Just when I was beginning to think that these websites were not as popular as I felt they were, I stumbled across this months UK edition of Marie Claire, advertising an article on a girl who was "terrorized by anorexia extremists." The article, written by Cori Magnotta, a teen Ralph Loren model, explained how the sites sucked her in. She explained pro-ana websites as an "online community of eating disorder sufferers who worship their illness like a religion and celebrate their extreme dieting." She explains how easy it was to get wrapped up in the false comfort of the others participating in the chats and forums; it allowed a place for ed's (eating disorder sufferers) to create an imaginary universe in which they were not ill, but everyone else was. The following interview with Cori and other eds outlines the websites addictive control.

Cori continues on to explain that with the help of her new “sisters” on the pro-ana sites, she was able to stick to her extreme diets and even buy illegal diet pills that were banned in the US off of other eds living in the UK. She even participated in starving contests, with a record length of 45 days. She explains, “I kept logging on and became thinner and thinner.”

The websites' starvation contests, thinspiration pages, and diet/purging tips helped to enable Cori to continue living a dangerous life. How can thinspiration, such as the pictures below, be examples of something to strive for? Does this seem like a healthy mindset? Does this really seem like a norm?

After her hospitalization (described in the opening quote above), Cori was sent to a psychiatric ward and then an outpatient program with intensive therapy. This is the type of treatment that eating disorder sufferers SHOULD be receiving…unfortunately these websites are encouraging them that they do not have a problem.

This article has an underlaying theme that highlights the immense danger of this disease and these sites…the danger of addiction. Even after Cori was counseled to stop going onto the sites, she returned again under another name. Even after Cori lost her hair and stopped getting her period, she returned to the sites for support. Even after Cori was HOSPITALIZED, she returned to the sites and was supplied with more diet pills. These sites are a cult. They are brainwashing. They have the same effect on eds that a violent video game has on a child—they desensitize. Suddenly not eating is a norm, taking 50 laxatives a day is a norm, taking part in a starvation contest is a norm.

What scares me the most is how many times she admits to returning to the sites. How is this allowed? How can people be so selfish and so blinded that they are (literally) dying to take others down with them? These sites are so sadistic in the way that they twist and turn and torture each other’s morale’s and spirits. I am scared and I am sad. It breaks my heart to think that people are subjecting themselves to this sort of abuse willingly. It is not all right for someone to kill another human being by penetrating their thoughts and celebrating sickness. It is not all right for you to seek out these sites to “support” you through your painful disease.

So tell me, when someone dies from these websites, is it considered suicide or murder?