Pro-ana Web sites and a culture of eating disorders: Young people speak out

A while back, I wrote a post titled “Ana Carolina Reston, Pro-Ana Web sites a sign that we have all failed our girls” that looked into the frightening phenomenon of teen girls running running pro-anorexia (pro-ana) Web sites, and of how the body image issues many girls around the globe deal with are a fault of society.

At very least, we owe this to the young girls in our lives: let them know they are beautiful as they are, and that the images they see on TV and in magazines are just that, images. Actresses and models are not reality, they are.

We have failed our girls. And we need to start making things right again.

Interestingly, this post was noticed by some younger readers – including some who run pro-ana sites. They touched at the issue from perspectives I never could, and their responses – on both sides of the issue – tell the story of a confused generation. Here’s what some of them had to say:

I do have an eating disorder website and it’s really hard to explain myself I feel like I’m fat and I need to lose weight and I only put the pro ana rules on myself I’d never do it to someone else but then I found these sites 6yrs ago and I realised (unfortunately) cruelly people felt just like me I wish noone did but the reality is other people think like me I feel less like a freak having known people like me I know that doesn’t make it ok but it’s better than being alone. I do not condone starvation and will not hand out tips to what we call ‘wannabaes’. I’m sorry if this is offensive but having people like me in contact with me makes it easier to live, loneliness too is a killer.

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I’m sorry if you find this offensive, but the ONLY was you will find it easier to live is if you seek help for your sickness. You say that loneliness is a killer, but in the long run the only thing killing you is yourself, and your choice to be pro anorexic.

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I agree with you but when you have anorexia and you have failed to get well so often- I can put on weight but my thoughts have never changed enough, so I’m not pro ana but living with ana If I had a choice I’d have no eating disorder but with my rampant thoughts it’s easier to live by ana than eat normALLy and suffer even more or become bulimic which has happened to me many times during trying to recover, I’ve been in and out of therapy for 12 years.

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“I think that the fashion industry is crazy when they critize models weights like on The Agency and America’s Next Top Model. They should make the BPI of 18 rule like Madrid did. These models are way to skinny and they look horrible and emaciated!!! They are pressured into purging and being anorexic or bulimic so that they can make it sucessfully as a model.. They look gross.. people with the disease need medical and physcological help immeadiatley!!! It is creepy and VERY noticable.. accept yourself for who you are! NOBODY is perfect…”

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“Yes, some of the models (both male and female) and actresses like Kate Bosworth, Nichole Richie, Victoria Beckham tell us with actions and photos that to be beautiful you must be small. But if you were happy with yourself to begin with, the fight to be as you are might be easier to win. Stay healthy, work out, enjoy life, but enjoy it. After reading articles of models (including two sisters) who have died to stay thin, their plight was sad and dismal and very lonely. That is not enjoying life. I want to cry at the idea that there are places in the world that promote illnesses like anorexia and bulimia.”

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I’m a boy aged 15 with a girlfriend also aged 15 who is going through a rather terrifying case of Anorexia as i write this..

Even beofre i met her i was horrified by the size and shape of the models and ‘fashion icons’ i saw on TV and in magazines, so when i found out the news that somebody who i loved and cared for was becoming one of these people i felt physically sick.

Anorexia and Bulimia are things that you hear about almost every day, and constant complaints of ‘Oh my god, i look so fat!’ are heard almost every five seconds. I was disgusted to hear a female friend of mine who is a size 6, 15 years old and 5ft 4in tell me she was going on a diet to try and drop a dress size because she’s recently been to a fashion show and wished one day she could look as beautiful as the models did..

That for me gave me a mixture of two emotions, i wanted to hit her for being so stupid, but cry for her for being so blind. I don’t see why young girls think being so skinny means they’re beautiful. So many girls are taking on their independance streaks and claiming they want to be individual, yet they are copying the stick thin look of catwalkers in an attempt to be something they’re not.

Anorexia and Bulimia cause alot more problems than gains, the only person who really feels better about themselves is the person doing it, whereas anybody close to them are left feeling hurt and helpless.

Natural beauty is better than anything else in the world and being confident in your own skin is far more attractive then starving yourself ’til make your ribs poke out and skin droops, no matter what anyone else says.

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people need to realise that they are just damaging themselves but once its in thier head they dont realise what they are doing, and all that pressurer must just make them want to explode.

i am very interested in the fashion industry and have even considered entering it as a makeup artist but if that meant staring at girls like that everyday i dont think i could do it.

im all for havin thin girls to model thier clothes but come on, there is a line and recently it has been crossed just a few to many times.

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So touched that you used my website in your article, but all your doing is giving us anas the attention that we thrive on.. everytime people post something about pro ana and all that it makes me happy because my site will just get more popular and get more hits and that makes me happy if the girls who come there need help. Its not like you choose to have the disease, but if you have it you feel SO alone and all you want to do is discuss. no one can heal an eating disorder, but if i can help girls like me feel better and not be as unhappy then it makes me feel good. i searched up my site x3thinspiration on google and it showed me this article so what happens when other girls search up something regarding this? they go to the website. they read my tips and see my thinspo. theyre exposed. and i just might have sold anorexia to one more person. all these pro ana things might just do more harm then good.

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and it’s not only the media, the models and popstars who let girls from my age starve themselves. I know girls who are boulimic or anorexic.. Most of them have the sickness because their most closest relatives say they’re too fat and ugly and that they won’t be able to find a boyfriend because they look so disgustingly fat.. Gouverments should work on this too. It certainly isn’t only because of the thinspiration you see in magazines and on catwalks that there are so many girls starving themselves…..

You can find all the comments in their entirety by clicking here.

–WKW