Art, science and love.

When you’re hungry, take a nap. Shower, drink tea, numb your taste buds with teething gel, give yourself a manicure. Do anything but eat. These are some of the tips that “pro-ana,” or pro-anorexia Web sites offer to those who choose to restrict their eating.[link]

I have no clue why I’ve never heard of this before. I went over to peruse commenter Dav’s site and found a post on “pro-ana”. Weird. So I started googling for pro-ana sites. I couldn’t believe what I was finding. I found the best information about it at this site, here is its definition:

A simple, concrete definition of what “pro-ana” is and what it means to the young women who identify themselves with it is difficult, if not completely impossible to pin down.   Among the most common explanations is that it simply means that they refuse treatment for their eating disorder.   What is problematic about this definition is that most anorectics resist recovery, pro-ana or not.   Young women with eating disorders almost always lie to their friends, families, and therapists about their behaviors and are willing to go to great lengths to avoid eating without arousing suspicion, just as sufferers from these diseases always have since the first documented cases of anorexia and bulimia.   This attitude alone is not enough to differentiate anorexia from pro-ana.

Resisting recovery, however, may be one of the few sentiments shared by the pro-anorexic community as a whole.   Beyond this a great disparity exists in their conceptions of what exactly it means to be pro-ana.   Some insist that their eating disorders are “lifestyles,” or conscious choices; others may admit that their ED is a disease but either refuse treatment or insist that they can stop before it goes too far.   Many pro-anorexics are happy to “teach” others who are interested in developing eating disorders how to do so; others refuse.   Some acknowledge that their weight loss goals are dangerous, but many cannot see this or simply do not care.

In short, pro-ana is comprised of girls who need help. Women who have eating disorders think that their disorder is natural, and perfectly fine, so of course they’re going to attempt a movement in which multiple people can come together and fight together saying that the disorder is completely alright to have. These women are not happy with their bodies - and they’re going to find any excuse to continue killing themselves in order to be what they consider to be the ideal weight.

On some sites I found records of girls eating 150 calories a day and calling this a “bad day”.  On others I found criticism of people who are exposing the extremely dangerous social movement. Almost all of the sites are fully equip  with Body mass indexes for people to go on and calculate their BMI. I think I’ve done the BMI rant one or two times - so I’ll just state two problems with that real quick…

a) It perpetuates the obsession with numbers

b) It gives a false representation of what a woman’s body “should” be. All women are biologically different. We can’t all fit into a chart and expect it to be accurate.

My big problem with these sites is that people keep calling them “support” sites. I don’t see them as support sites. I see them as sites that are normalizing dangerous behavior. Support sites wouldn’t be showing pictures of girls that they’re striving to be like. They wouldn’t be setting up BMI charts to drive in the obsession with numbers. A proper support site wouldn’t be cheering on girls who have been fasting for 10 days. They are not safe support groups for women and men, they are sites that encourage an anorexic lifestyle. There is absolutely no way in my mind that normalizing a disease that is perpetuated mostly by the media is in any way, shape, or form a positive thing.

What should pro-ana be? Help. These girls need help. They don’t need people telling them that what they’re doing is okay, because it’s not. It’s not okay to starve yourself. It’s not okay to drop out of university so that you can go to the gym more. It’s not okay to lose sleep at night over the thought “does an apple, or 6 spoonfuls of no fat yogurt have more calories?” And these pro-ana sites are simply saying that this is okay.

What I do like about the pro-ana sites is that they are making people come out of the closet. Women who have eating disorders really should be encouraged to tell people - but then after that, there should be help, not “yay! congratulation!” like when a homosexual comes out of the closet. Eating disorders are not a time for celebration. Women and men who have previously struggled with eating disorders but have survived should most definitely become part of these social circles, they can offer support groups, stories and encouragement that goes the opposite way that the pro-ana sites are going now.

I can’t believe that there are entire social groups of young girls and boys and older women and men publically out on the internet  saying “i have a disorder, and proud of” and there isn’t more attention being given. Wake the eff up people. Seriously. These people are literally killing themselves. We can sit and bitch left, right and center about how messed up these sites are, about how the media is full of assholes who throw these body ideals on girls but that’s not going to stop these people from killing themselves.

I want to point out one last thing, amongst my searching and reading I came across Mamavision. A blog about eating disorders that has a ton of really great information, opinions and an even better mission. Amongst her post I found this one, Do you think I’m fat?, that literally had me in tears. It’s a pretty powerful video to be able to make me cry within 30 seconds.