The latest trends, techniques, and insider secrets—revealed.

Disappearing Act
Thousands of women are visiting websites that glorify deadly eating disorders. Here, the skinny on weborexia—and what you can do to stop the trend.
By Jessica Dye

Lizzy, a 19-year-old from San Francisco, runs her own website. But it’s not a typical teenage blog, full of her favorite music, celebrity gossip, or crushes. It’s a pro-ana (anorexia) site, featuring her tips on how to go for days without eating while exercising to exhaustion, digitally altered pictures of skeletal models and actresses, and instructions for throwing up the few calories she allows herself each day. “There’s a part of me that realizes how bad this disease is for me,” she wrote in a post for WebMD, “and another part that says I have to be thinner no matter what. That’s the side that’s usually in the most control.”†

It should be noted that Lizzy’s site, like most pro-ana, pro-mia (bulimia), and pro-ED (eating disorder) websites, also offers links to recovery, and ultimately, the choice to view pro-ana content on the Internet is up to each individual. But for the estimated one out of five Americans who have an eating disorder or teeter on the edge of this life-threatening condition, the path to recovery online isn’t an easy one to choose—even when it’s clearly marked. When Lizzy visited her first pro-ana site, she was already exhibiting symptoms of anorexia—consuming no more than 500 calories a day, exercising frequently, and obsessing about her weight. “I started wondering if I was developing an eating disorder,” she remembers. “As soon as I went to some of the sites, I thought, ‘Wow, yeah, I do.’”

Starved for Empathy
According to a 2005 study from Stanford University and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, California, teens with eating disorders are three times more likely to wind up in the hospital after visiting pro-ana sites, and nearly 40 percent of patients at LPCH admit to visiting such sites to find tips on starving or purging. What’s more, it’s not only a teen epidemic; studies report that anorexia and bulimia can afflict children as young as 6 and adults as old as 76, according to Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders (ANRES). And among the nearly 8 million Americans who suffer from eating disorders, middle-aged women are one of the fastest-growing demographics. Many of them have also turned to pro-ana sites to find communities where they can share their feelings, stories, and “thinspiration,” warped mottoes or pictures that openly encourage extreme thinness.

Since the mortality rate from anorexia-related causes is about 12 times higher than the rate of all causes of death for women ages 15 to 24, this is more than just swapping diet stories.†† “[V]isiting these negative types of sites exposes them to so much triggering content that it becomes like a crack addict walking into a crack house…or an alcoholic walking into a liquor store,” warns Amy, the moderator of Something-fishy.org, an award-winning pro-recovery site.††† Sufferers of eating disorders have always made a point of being well-informed about their illness, turning to books and magazines to find thinspiration in the days before the Internet. But the last official estimates put the number of pro-ana sites at roughly 500 (this doesn’t necessarily include alternatively hosted blogs and communities), and several of these sites receive thousands of visitors a day.

Increased Visibility
In 2003, the media began to shine its spotlight on the dangers of pro-ana sites, and Oprah did a show to spread the word. Since then, a number of groups have taken action to convince individuals like Lizzy to take their sites down. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD) has been working to remove pro-ana sites from the Web along with its volunteer group, Media and Internet Guardians, which assists the ANAD in targeting negative pro-ana content for removal. It scored a major victory in 2001, when Yahoo! agreed that pro-ana content was in violation of its Terms of Service and voluntarily removed pro-ana links and sites from its search engine.

Many former staples of the pro-ana cybercommunity have since been removed from the Internet, either by their hosts or by their creators in response to media pressure. Others have moved their URLs to evade criticism and can only be found with only a little digging. Because ANAD and others are turning up the heat on pro-ana holdouts, many users now make their way to pro-ana communities hosted by personal blogging and networking sites such as Myspace.com and Livejournal.com. One of Livejournal’s pro-ana communities, for example, has all the familiar features of a pro-ana website. Members post stories, tips, and trigger photos in an online forum. "Drink lots of water and [P]ropel,” posts one girl; “its only 5 calories (I think) and I know that I get light headed a lot (Propel will help that.)" When the ANAD asked Livejournal to ban these communities, Livejournal declined, citing its users’ rights to freedom of speech.

Annie Hayashi, director of communications for the ANAD, thinks that Livejournal and other hosting sites are missing the point. “Livejournal believes that this is a First Amendment issue,” she says, but ANAD sees pro-ED content as a medical—not constitutional—matter. “They’re teaching these girls how to be better anorexics.” And although traditional media have condemned pro-ana sites, it’s important to remember that media fascination with thinness has long been one of the cultural underpinnings of eating disorders. “Who says [pro-ana sites] pose a threat to visitors any more than recent photos of Lindsay Lohan in People magazine?” asks Dr. Leslie Regan Shade, associate professor of communication studies at Concordia University.

The Road to Pro-Recovery
Much of the appeal of these sites, as opposed other forms of communication, lies in the fact that it’s easy to cover your tracks on the Internet. Friends and family of eating-disorder sufferers often have no idea when and which pro-ana sites they’ve been surfing. Many girls are also drawn to these sites because they can open up and relate to others anonymously. According to Something-fishy.org, those who suspect that a friend or loved one is frequenting pro-ana sites should closely monitor Internet use, keeping in mind that many young women, who make up the majority of these communities, know their way around blocking software. Site visitors also may sport pro-ana or pro-mia bracelets—red or blue strings or beads—to signify their membership in the pro-ana community. The most important thing friends and family can do is to talk to their loved one and set up an appointment for them to talk with a doctor, a person they can trust who won’t enable them to perpetuate the pro-ana cycle.

“Anorexia is a really, really difficult illness,” says Hiyashi; it’s usually accompanied by feelings of intense isolation, loneliness, and depression. Recovery sites such as Something-fishy.org, operated by a recovered anorexic, and Renfrew.com, run by the Renfrew Center Foundation for Eating Disorders, are trying to replicate the community bonds of pro-ana sites, but they are carefully monitored by moderators and strictly enforce a ban on all numbers (weights, calorie counts, BMIs) and pictures that encourage body-image obsession. Recovery sites are currently outnumbered by their pro-ana counterparts five to one, but positive-body-image Web resources are growing and offering hope to girls like Lizzy, who feel they have nowhere to turn outside of these self-destructive communities. And just maybe, when eating-disorder sufferers learn to shut off the computer and open up in real time, they’ll find that the path to real recovery and acceptance is a little easier to find.

†"Living With Anorexia: Lizzy"; webmd.com/content/Article/109/109391.htm.
††Renfrew.org; Eating Disorders 101 Guide: A Summary of Issues, Statistics, and Resources.
†††Something-fishy.org; "WWW.Warning—Negative Internet Sites."

Photo credit: Creacart

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