Newsweek recently published an article titled Out of the Shadows regarding the proliferation of so-called “pro-ana” web sites:
A Web page labeled “Ana Boot Camp” recently offered its members a seemingly irresistible proposition: a 30-day regimen designed to help them drop some serious pounds, no exercise needed. The catch was that the group’s members were to vary their daily caloric intake from 500 (less than half the daily minimum requirement for women recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine) to zero. They were supposed to track their progress, fast to make up for the days they accidentally “overate” and support each other as they worked toward their common goal of radical weight loss.
Pro-anorexia, or “pro-ana,” Web sites (with more than one using the “Ana Boot Camp” name) have for years been a controversial Internet fixture, with users sharing extreme diet tips and posting pictures of emaciated girls under headlines such as “thinspiration.” But what was unusual about the site mentioned above (which is no longer available) was where it was hosted: the ubiquitous social networking site Facebook.com. The (largely female) users who frequent pro-ana sites have typically done so anonymously, posting under pseudonyms and using pictures of fashion models to represent themselves. Now, as the groups increasingly launch pages on Facebook, linking users’ real-life profiles to their eating disorders, the heated conversation around anorexia has become more public. Many pro-ana Facebookers say the groups provide an invaluable support system to help them cope with their disease, but psychologists worry that the growth of such groups could encourage eating disorders in others.
More recently, I came across an article by John Grohol in which he seems to argue that there is a positive side to such groups:
These groups are a little disturbing, especially as you read through the postings. But no more so than the dozens of self-harm sites online, or the sites devoted to helping people be more successful in suicide. Or a dozen other topics that if you learned you could join a group that was “pro” that, you’d be saying to yourself, “Really? Wow.”
That is, after all, the nature of the Internet. It allows for people with very diverse wants and needs to find one another and hook up with one another far more easily than has ever been possible previously in human culture. The fact that some of these wants and needs are outside of the mainstream norm is not at all surprising.
So what does all of this do for people? Isn’t allowing people to discuss their pro-ana needs just plain harmful and potentially dangerous? Not necessarily:
Marcia Herrin, a Dartmouth professor who has written several books on eating disorders, finds the public nature of the discussions of anorexia on Facebook encouraging, because it shows that teens are less afraid of confronting eating disorders.
The more “out in the open” these kinds of concerns become, the more society learns and can answer the kinds of information (or mis-information) they promote. If more teens feel comfortable talking about eating disorders, then perhaps more will also feel comfortable asking for help when they notice themselves or a close friend who might be going down that road. And while in an ideal world, we’d prefer a teen or child not have to go down that road to learn for themselves, sometimes experience is the only teacher that can make a difference.
I think Grohol is confusing two very different things here.
I would argue that the answer to Grohol’s question, “Isn’t allowing people to discuss their pro-ana needs just plain harmful and potentially dangerous?”, is an emphatic “Yes!”.
There is an enormous difference hetween raising awareness about anorexia and other eating disorders and pro-ana sites, just as there is between raising awareness about suicide and pro-suicide sites.
Raising awareness draws attention to, and potentially political and financial support for research into causes and treatment of, the disorder.
Pro-ana sites not only strive to normalize the behavior but encourage their members to ignore the risks in the pursuit of extreme “thinness”, aka “thinspiration”. How is this any different from the typical antipsychiatry site that promotes the view that illnesses such as schizophrenia do not exist beyond social rejection of the symptoms that characterize the illness?
For those caught up in (or formerly caught up in) the internet pro-ana scene, I would recommend having a look at We Bite Back, a forum community for support in recovery from this sinister online virtual cult world:
This is the site that comes after the madness. Before we came along, there was no place for people to go who found support on pro-ana forums, communities and email lists who didn’t want to do the ana thing anymore. Welcome to the first web site designed specifically for post-pro-anorexics.
We represent a worldwide virtual network of people proactively seeking recovery and happiness with the same dedication that proanas apply to seeking lower goal weights.
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