With the growth of Pro Anorexia websites, the internet is filled with thousands of different sites
The advent of Pro Anorexia websites began over 6 years ago, with sites popping up on the internet encouraging people to choose anorexia as a lifestyle, rather than an illness. The sites are also scarily filled with photos of celebrities and models that the readers idolize and whose bones protrude from their skin.
The text motivates people to starve themselves on the least amount of calories possible in order to be the best anorexic they can be. Tips are offered when you get hungry and “reverse trigger” photos can be found of overweight individuals who they never want to look like.
The first study of its kind on Pro Anorexia sites was published last year in European Eating Disorder Review. One of the researchers, Anna Bardone-Cone, who works with eating disorder clients, realizes that they do provide support for individuals who need so desperately to not feel alone, but “our concern, as people who work with eating disorders and are interested in women’s health, is that in addition to the support, they get stuck in the disorder.”
The debate rages as to whether the sites can be banned, as the Health authorities in Spain have done. Says Pro-Ana Nation, “Some people ask if it is ethically acceptable to allow pro-ana Web sites. “In my opinion, if they start banning pro-ana sites, they may as well censor the pages of the major fashion magazines, with their features on... ‘The latest diets to help you fight the flab.’
“Fashion magazines will often provide advice on exercise and ‘healthy’ eating alongside pictures of genuinely underweight models, many of whom appear on the “thinspiration” sections of pro-ana Web sites. To censor pro-ana sites in the face of this kind of material seems hypocritical, to say the least.”
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