Getting Thinspired: The Danger of Pro-Ana Websites

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Recommended: How social media is increasing eating disorders

Young teenage girls are tempted towards deadly lifestyles due to the Internet’s wide array of pro-anorexic websites; these sites provide images and advice for those desiring to get thin quickly, resulting in healthy young girls developing life-threatening eating disorders. Pro-ana websites wage war on the developing minds of young girls. These dangerous resources support young girls in their quest for weight loss, though it is not in a positive way. Photos and forums located on these websites suggest unhealthy

methods in which to achieve thinness.

Pro-ana websites provide an easy means to lose weight. Their tips and tricks work, and though they cause great health risks, users lose weight. “…very young girls are spending a significant amount of time researching ways to achieve this secretly online” (Daily Mail Reporter). In this century, younger girls have become more aware of their body image due to the attention the world draws to it. In order to achieve satisfaction with how they look, they search for advice through search engines.

Though pro-ana websites cause the same general result, each site has its unique identifiers. They range from simple text blogs written by anorexia sufferers to webpages with grotesque trigger images. Some sites even include anti-thinsporation, or “fatsporation”. Fatsporation is defined as “…photographs which shows persons with morbid obesity…to show how food may lead to such a situation” (Gwizdek 159). Thinsporation webpages are easily accessible to those who have Internet. In fact, they are accessed more often than one may think. “Results indicated that Pro-ED search terms are sought out more than 13 million times annually, with pro-ana receiving the most searches monthly” (Lewis & Arbuthnott...

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...ted Newspapers, 26 Apr. 2009. Web.

Davis, Natalie. "Misery Loves Company: Introducing the Pro-Anorexia Web, Where the Ultimate Control Freaks Find Friendship, | Baltimore City Paper." Misery Loves Company: Introducing the Pro-Anorexia Web, Where the Ultimate Control Freaks Find Friendship, | Baltimore City Paper. N.p., 24 July 2002. Web. Mar. 2014.

Lewis, Stephen P., and Alexis E. Arbuthnott. "Searching For: The Nature of Internet Searches for Pro-Eating Disorder Websites." Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (2012): 200-04. Web.

Udovitch, Mim. "A Secret Society of the Starving." The New York Times. The New York Times, 07 Sept. 2002. Web. Mar. 2014.

Whitehead, Krista. ""HUNGER HURTS BUT STARVING WORKS": A CASE STUDY OF GENDERED PRACTICES IN THE ONLINE PRO-EATING-DISORDER COMMUNITY." Canadian Journal of Sociology 35.4 (2010): 595-626. Web.

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