Pro Ana and Pro Mia WebsitesPro ana and pro mia websites are websites which promote the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia as lifestyle choices.They claim that those suffering have the right to be left alone to do what they want with their own bodies.Yes, everyone has the right to do what they want with their own body. That goes without saying.But eating disorders are not about any rights other than those of the right to be happy and live a long and fulfilling life, and all the other things that we should all be able to take for granted.I've spent quite a lot of time viewing Pro ana and Pro mia sites and have even signed up with one so that I can advertise my website from there.What can be seen is heartbreaking. Young women and girls pouring their hearts out to each other about how fat they feel, how they hate themselves and how they feel unworthy of love.They pass tips to each other - ways to purge, the best laxatives, ways to fill themselves up with the minimum of calories, etc, etc. 'Social websites like MySpace encourage anorexia', warn charitiesEating disorder charities have called on social websites such as MySpace, Facebook and Youtube to have tighter controls on their content, after they found anorexic girls using them to encourage each other to starve themselves.The bizarre fad - known as thinspiration - is partly driven by ultra skinny celebrities such as Nicole Richie and Victoria Beckham. Now thousands of shocking videos showing off images of extremely thin women have been posted by teens on popular film clip site You Tube. Click here to read the whole article
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They post and view pictures such as these, which they call 'thinspiration.'These websites do not help anyone - they perpetuate the damage that these girls and women are doing to themselves. They are simply encouraging each other to starve.And they are determined to survive. Even though they were banned by Google, there are masses of them to be found on Live Journal - another search engine.Having searched them for anorexia I found no less than 348 pro ana websites.According to this Daily Mail article, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Apparently there are thousands of these sites, actively encouraging young girls to starve themselves.
