*Role Model*

It is difficult for eating disorder sufferers to be very open about their disease. Once of the major symptoms of the disorder is a desire to keep control over one’s life. By opening up about the disorder, these individuals are putting themselves in an incredibly vulnerable position. They put themselves in a seemingly dangerous position of allowing others to judge them, to question them, to try and tell them what to do.

When considering the above circumstances, the appeal of an anonymous website to open up about the disease is very clear. Rather than fighting the disease, they are encouraged to embrace it, thus rather than feel as if they are judged for it, they feel as if they are being welcomed into a secret organization for it. The attraction to these websites is understandable, which is why they must be stopped.

Cori Magnotta took part in another interview with Real Health TV, explaining her personal struggle in greater detail. She explains the addictive component of the websites and the dangerous ability their followers are able to pull you back in, even during rehabilitation.

If you are an eating disorder sufferer reading this post, please take note of her personal story and how long she has struggled. Cori is an intensely strong and brave woman for being so public about her disease and use of the websites. She is a wonderful person to look up to as an example for her ability to admit to her struggles and publicize her story to help others.

Who is in control?

If you have not yet had a chance to visit a pro-ana or pro-mia websites, a BBC News article, "Seeking Thinspiration", written by Jaqueline Head, accurately describes their sick content. She explains thinspiration as “pictures of painfully skinny girls…. Comparing dangerously low goal weights and measurements, and team up to ‘keep each other strong’ in their quest to lose weight.’” She also takes note of several posts in which “they swap stories on how they vomit until they cough blood."

Head points out in her article that one of the most disturbing facts about the prominence of these sites on the internet is that it “brings them within reach of a wider audience”. From articles on what diet pills work best to the most effective ways to purge, these websites are blatantly enforcing eating disorders and subtly celebrating a slow and painful death for each reader participating.

Heads major concern outlined in her article is that these websites are leaking from the world wide web onto social networking websites such as facebook and myspace. Head explains, “their presence on social networking websites, which have rules against posting harmful content, raises the groups to a new respectability.” Some of the group names on these networking sites include “Get thin or die trying” and “Quod me nutrit me destruit," meaning that which nourishes me destroys me. To me, these titles do not indicate anything good is coming to follow. On the contrary, they clearly celebrate the fact that they are promoting dangerous and extremely unhealthy ways of life.

The most disturbing part about these websites is that many people are logging onto them who do not psychologically suffer from anorexia or bulimia, but are so desperate to lose weight that they resort to actually trying to become anorexic—which by definition, is impossible. They attempt to become anorexic in the same way someone may try to catch a cold. All I can as is, why? Why would you try to become a tortured individual? Why would you want to make your mind vulnerable to a psychiatric illness with the highest mortality rate? Up to 20% of these individuals die not only from the physical effects of these diseases, but the mental effects cause death as well—many suffering form eating disorders are at high risk for suicidal deaths.

Head closes the article by using individual examples of how these sites influenced eds in an attempt to understand why anyone would use them. In the case of 21-year-old Andrea Schneider, who suffered from anorexia since she was 16, explains her reasoning:

"When you are actively in your eating disorder, you desperately want someone to understand, and a lot of time you find groups like the pro groups on Facebook that are supportive of you continuing your eating disorder," she says. "When you are in the middle of it and don't want to give it up, you cling to these sites that tell you what you are doing is OK. Recovery is hard, staying sick isn't, so it's easier to hide behind these sites claiming that you are making a lifestyle choice, rather than admitting that you are sick and trying to get better."

Schneider makes an important point in her explanation. She points out that the sites allowed her to convince herself that she was consciously making a decision to be anorexic, rather than admit she were sick. The root cause of many eating disoders is an attempt to gain control. The problem is, once the eating disorder takes over psychologically and physically, the individual is no longer in control, and that is when they need to seek help the most. These websites serve as an enabling tool, allowing eds to prolong their disease by not admitting to their disease and saving themselves. As Schneider explains, “recovery is hard, staying sick isn’t.”

I would like everyone participating in these websites to ask themselves, “Who, or what, is in control now?”

Weak Arguments

I’ve been reading through interviews between the media and creators of pro-ana sites, and the reasoning behind using the sites is simply illogical. The two major arguments are 1- they are logging on to keep themselves thin, thus they are not hurting anyone else, and 2- the disclaimers often displayed at the homepage advise those attempting to recover and those without eating disorders to not continue on to the website.

Well, as discussed in the previous post, this first argument is just flat out false. Your efforts to stay thin are no longer only YOUR efforts. Once you employ the use of the Internet, you are opening the door for anyone and everyone to take part in and be influenced by what you post. There are over 400 pro-ana and pro-mia websites dedicated to collecting individuals who can add negative thoughts and emotions to the forums so that they can feel “less alone” and “more in control”.

In a Time article written by Jessica Reaves, called Anorexia Goes High Tech, Reaves further explains the issue with this initial argument. “Most of the minds visiting these sites are not exactly in peak psychological condition.” She goes on to point out how the majority of those using pro-ana sites are extremely vulnerable and looking for a place where others can relate to their feelings of depression and angst. Reaves notes, “Recent studies indicate that 85% of anorexics experience the first onset of the illness by age 20—researchers have noted a marked increase of cases in the 8-11-year-old range over the past five years.”

This research only emphasizes one of the major points I have been trying to make. These websites are reaching far more than the creators are making it seem. As Reaves also points out in her article, “kids in that [8-11] range are also spending more and more time in front of computers….a trend that leaves them especially susceptible to the proliferation of pro-anorexia sites.”

The second argument is actually quite ironic. I think the disclaimers add a nice touch to the pro-ana pages, in that rather than deterring hopeful anorexics away, it actually lures them in. The disclaimer on the homepage gives the websites a sick sort of legitimacy, as if to say, “do not come in here unless you are serious about losing weight.”

Reaves explains the legitimacy of these “warnings”:

“It [the disclaimers] sounds like good, responsible advice—until you consider the effects of a warning like that on the psychology of anorexia. People, especially young women, suffering from anorexia tend to be perfectionists dead set on gaining approval. They want to smooth down all the rough edges, make sure everyone (except themselves) is happy, be exactly the kind of person everyone expects them to be. It’s a very tough mindset to maintain, and you can only do it if you’re willing to suffer (which anorexics are only too happy to do) and if you can be strong in the face of adversity…. In other words, if you’re a young woman on the verge of anorexia, and you visit the site and read the warning, chances are you’re going to see it as a dare.”

There is no doubt in my mind that the creators of these sites are well aware of the vulnerability of an individual desperate to lose weight. I do not think the daring disclaimers or high popularity of the websites are any accident or coincidence. These individuals are purposely seeking out others who can make them feel better about the fact that they are making themselves sick. If you want to keep yourself sick, find, but don't do it in an arena where you are seducing susceptible people into a world of sickness and pain simply to make yourself feel better.

*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?

Prescriptions, please!

One of my major issues with pro-ana/mia sites is that they are so accessible and prominent. They are readily available for anyone who has, or wants to have, an eating disorder. I am beginning to notice, however, that these websites are not the only enablers that are readily available to the general public. As briefly touched upon in my last blog post, diet pills and laxatives are heavily overused.

People make a big deal that prescription drugs are becoming the immediate go-to solution in the US, but at least there is some psychiatric counseling required before hand! Has anyone given any thought to the overflow of diet pills spilling out of drug stores? I can’t even buy a vitamin without being slapped in the face by an overwhelming section of diet pills reminding me that eating healthy and working out are STILL not enough to keep me looking good. Furthermore, the advertising for these things is atrocious. I’ve given up reading the last few pages of a magazine, as they are almost always devoted entirely to diet pill advertising.

I, personally, don’t have a problem with all of the photo shopped models and whatnot, by this point I’m pretty much aware that they are simply a mixture of genetically blessed individuals and nerdy photo-shop geniuses. But this bombardment of pills on the other hand…even for a person like me, who does not suffer an eating disorder, they are nearly irresistible. For example, if I feel like I look pretty good from just diet and exercise alone, I’ll probably look pretty damn hot with the extra help of a miracle diet pill. Hey, if they can work for "Grandma Cara" over here, think of what they can do for me, right?

This, of course, is not the case. I admit that I, far too often, fall victim to these dangerous pills. All I end up with is a destroyed sleep schedule and the shakes. Oh, and a quickly dwindling bank account.

This is where the problem is, though. Diet pills are not supposed to be for just anyone to buy! They are meant to help those who are greatly overweight. They should be prescribed by a doctor, not available to just any one wanting to buy them over the counter! Like I mentioned in the last post, there are countless individuals who do not appear to have an eating disorder, and these pills are easily accessible to them, thus enabling their sickness—and people are making a profit on this. Diet pills should absolutely not be so easy to get a hold of.

While the advertising often boasts the glory of being thin and beautiful, they seldom even touch upon the risks. It is a shame that even when trying to find accurate information on diet pills, such as this website advertises, a myriad of links to testimonials still litter the page. Follow the link and take note of the links included in the “health risks of weight loss supplements” box. I just don’t understand.