Restricting Pro-ana Blogs

Incidences of Anorexia Nervosa have appeared to increase sharply in the USA, UK and western European countries since the beginning of the 60s (Gordon, 2001). The increasing prevalence of the disease has led the World Health Organisation to declare eating disorders a global priority area within adolescent mental health (Becker et al. 2011). Anorexia has in many ways become a modern epidemic (Gordon, 2000) and with a mortality rate of 10% per decade (Gorwood et al. 2003), the highest of any mental disorder (Bulik et al. 2006), it is an epidemic that social and biological scientists have been working tirelessly to understand.

The movie relates that percentage of women with anorexia nervosa has been increasing consistently by 5%, making girls ages 18-24 the most vulnerable to this illness. The women interviewed in the film all came from different backgrounds but displayed similar characteristics related to their eating disorders. All of them said they their eating habits were “inspired” by some sort of media, whether it was a movie star, a television show, a model, or advertisements. One girls in the group therapy session stated that she watched a film about bulimia and was actually inspired to engage in this binging and purging behavior because of it. She along with others interviewed in the movie, reported that she did not think it was a big deal because it looked like you could eat just about anything with no consequences. This relates to the idea of using binging and purging as a tool of power, that is discussed by researchers later in the film. Women with eating disorders are often women that feel powerless, so they feel like their eating habits are the only thing

It is apparent that with the increasing popularity of social media today, there has been a shift in dietary changes within our society. Individuals are subconsciously changing how and what they eat. The question arises, why are so many young women dissatisfied with their bodies, despite their size? Although there are several forces believed to play a role in this dissatisfaction such as peer criticism and parental influences, the thin-ideal body is dominating the media (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008). Thinness is largely emphasized and praised for women in magazines, television shows, movies and commercials (Stice & Shaw, 1992). Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder that stems from this ubiquitous obsession to be thin and is often associated with a pathological fear of gaining weight, distorted self-body image and emaciation (The American Heritage® Science Dictionary).

According to the internet, 10 million American women suffer from eating disorders? Eating disorders are serious illnesses which are caused by irregular eating habits and concerns about body weight. As a result, eating disorders are caused psychological and environmental behavior which can often result in a fatal illness. This is what Kathryn Arnett experiences in her life. She explains how she developed an eating disorder in her essay, “Media and Advertisement: The New Peer Pressure.” The factors that contributed to Arnett’s eating disorder was media idolizing and portraying fake body images, teens developing and having low self-esteem, and parents not being present in their children's’s life.

Donna, who suffered from bulimia for 13 years, refuses to have social media in order to protect herself. She was in an online discussion forum in high school where people compared their weights, binged together and helped one another avoid eating which affected her so greatly that it drives her to stay away from social media because she doesn’t want to compare anymore. There is social media pages very much like that discussion forum that Donna was in that motivate those who suffer to get worse by saying things like “Pretty girls don’t eat” and “skip dinner, be thinner” on the pictures they post. There always has been “Pro-ana” (pro anorexia) and “Pro-mia” (pro bulimia) websites but social media has given those type of sites a global platform where they can share their ideas and photographs to support the self-destructive behaviors that they treat as a lifestyle choice, instead of as the serious mental illness it is. The constant stream of images of we are exposed to cause eating disorders to thrive. One study shows that the more time teenage girls spend on facebook heighten the likeliness of them developing an eating disorder. These websites and social media pages may cause triggers but they are never the sole cause of someone’s eating disorder. There is also very many testimonies of recovery on social media that could have a positive effect on someone’s eating disorder as well, but it's

Eating disorders have become a major problem throughout the world, specifically in the United States. The key factor that has an influence on eating disorders is the media. Including people of all ages and genders, up to twenty-four million people suffer from an eating disorder in the United States (ANAD np). This is a huge problem in the world today but what makes it so much worse is the fact that it can be prevented and it is in our control to change it. Young adults look to these celebrities, which are often their role models, and try to look just like them. What they fail to remember is the fact that celebrities have a lot of money, money that can afford nutritionists and personal trainers. They also fail to remember the extensive measures the celebrities may have to go through to look the way they do. An example of extensive measures can be considered plastic surgery. Ultimately, this creates a false goal that is almost unattainable for the “average” or “regular” person. Overall, the media has overtaken a huge impact on what the “ideal” body image has become today. Eating disorders are still on the rise and it is proven that an eating disorder such as anorexia affects up to 5 percent of women from ages 15-30 years old ("Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders | National Eating Disorders Association np"). This may not seem that significant but it is also not considering other eating disorders such as bulimia. All in all, eating disorders

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, anorexia holds one of the highest death rates out of all mental conditions. If girls read informative sites rather than biased bone-loving sites, they would realize that the risk outweighs the benefit. If girls read informative sites, they would learn that in an anorexic person, “the body is denied the essential nutrients it needs to function normally, so it is forced to slow down all of its processes to conserve

When I first heard about this idea of anorexia, I thought it was some magical formula that could make you skinny without doing any work. Of course that work was actually starving yourself, but everything I read made it seem effortless. That is something that Osgood brings up in her book. Being a Millennial, the internet was always just a click away. I was able to come across countless testimonies of people with anorexia and how it really did change their lives. What is shocking, however, is the amount of chat sites, websites, internet forums, and social media groups that actively promoted eating disorders, as well as images and links to thousands of “thinspiration” posters and quotes. Like Osgood states, the community glamourizes eating disorders into something that is not harmful to the body and easy to do. I remember finding how-to sites on being anorexic with one site even giving a step-by-step guide on how to hide the signs of eating disorders from your family, how to overcome feeling faint, and making the most out of your starvation. Looking back now I realize I how absurd and harmful they actually are, but at the time I actively followed their recommendations. Some of

Through the scanning of various pro-Ana websites and blogs, it became clear how prominent anorexia nervosa was. Not only how prominent, but how deeply rooted these beliefs are and how extreme some of the practices go. There is a societal pressure in America to push women to be thin and equate thinness with beauty and success. This pressure is enough to drive some women to starve themselves in order to feel accepted and a sense of belonging. Some pro-Ana websites and blogs are often deceivably

In my research, I explored the world of eating disorders. I wanted to see if there was anything specifically encouraging eating disorders and if there was a way to stop it. Eating disorders affect the community greatly because often times, they go unchecked or unrecognized. As a recovered anorexic, I feel it’s very important to address this issue. It’s a very big problem that is often not addressed at all, or is seen as normal, like counting calories. I hoped to find a way to improve the way that eating disorders are viewed and explain to people about what defines an eating disorder, because many people will never know if it is not explicitly explained to them. My study’s purpose is to bring light into the dark world of eating disorders

An analysis done by the National Institute of Health revealed, that plenty of Pro-Anorexia or "Thinspiration" websites and blogs support extreme weight loss and eating disorders, masquerade as fitness inspiration websites. This caused plenty of body dysmorphia sufferers to restrict their diets, which is potentially hazardous as the content should supposedly be devoted to healthy pursuits. Social media is also an outlet where a person can be exposed to body shaming, which serves as a trigger for those already suffering from the

Cyberspace, something that was once considered a fad, has developed into a tool that allows people struggling with anorexia to potentially find a sanctuary from the regulatory systems in popular culture that are applied to women’s bodies. Cyberspace provides an alternative space for women with eating disorders or body issues. The space created by cyberspace is potentially safer for women to meet because it allows anonymity while simultaneously being part of a community that the built environment is unable to provide. The components that make up pro-anorexia websites are usually considered abnormal, repugnant, or deviant within popular culture, because popular culture does not accept the way

In today’s society we are living in the age of technology. We have cameras, tablets, androids, iPhones, and with all of these technologies, social media was born. People use Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and all of these apps influence people’s lives everyday. One of the influences that social media has is to romanticize mental illness. We see people on Instagram post pictures of girls with cut wrists and degrading captions. On Twitter, there are accounts that tweet about how bad their anxiety was at school today. However, out of all the social media apps, Tumblr is the main source of romanticizing mental illness. There are blogs on Tumblr that are pro ana and mia, nicknames for eating disorders to make them sound “friendlier”. These blogs are dedicated to posting images and text posts that promote being anorexic and bulimic. The

This paper is a critical analysis of how research into pro-anorexia websites effects is insufficient for determining their influence on body dissatisfaction, dieting and anorexia nervosa (AN) disorder. These unorthodox services have received outrage in recent New Zealand (NZ) news coverage because they are seen to advocate engagement in eating disorder behaviour, and disengagement from professional treatment (Hawkes, 2017).

Strasburger supports her argument that the media is to blame by using a study that was done in Fiji. A natural field experiment in Fiji revealed that the eating disorder rate increased dramatically after American television shows, which show excessively thin female lead characters, were introduced. There are also now over 100 pro-anorexia Web sites on the Internet that not only encourage disordered eating but also offer specific advice on purging, severely restricting caloric intake, and exercising excessively (Strasburger). Recent studies have shown that adolescent girls describe the “ideal girl” as being 5’7”, 100 pounds, size 5, with long blonde hair and blue eyes (Developmental…Eating Disorders, Section 2, Chapter 10, Pg. 235). Girls related this “ideal girl” look to being