Pro-ana ... thousands of young girls see these images as beautiful perfection
Some 34,000 of the 1.1million Britons affected by eating disorders visit the sites for tips on how to avoid eating and how to hide problems from family and friends.
Here SunWoman investigates an internet phenomenon that ruins lives.
A YOUNG woman wraps her skeletal arms around her stick-thin legs, revealing a rib cage that shows she is close to death.
This is just one of a series of shocking images on websites known as “pro-ana” — short for pro-anorexia — or “thinspirations”.
They are created by and for a disturbed community of anorexia sufferers who rely on sordid internet information to help them lose weight.
There are said to be more than 1,000 such sites in existence.
Disturbing images are accompanied by “tips” such as: “If your family starts to notice you haven’t been eating go to a fast food restaurant and order something.
“Throw away the food but keep the wrapper and bag.”
Another “advises”: “At a family dinner, cut everything into little pieces and move them around your plate. It will look as if you have eaten.
“If you have a dog give some of the food to it under the table.”
Eating disorders are the most lethal of all psychiatric disorders, killing more people than depression or schizophrenia.
Most sufferers are under 22 and their risk of dying through starvation or suicide is huge.
The soaring numbers of websites that encourage victims has lead mental health charity SANE to carry out a survey of 150 people affected by eating disorders.
Almost half admitted to visiting the sites several times a day. They claim to get emotional support there.
But SANE chief executive Marjorie Wallace says: “These sites reinforce the belief that anorexia is an achievement rather than a disease.
Interspersing pictures of fashion models with images of starved and ravaged bodies that look more like concentration camp survivors than young women, then using slogans of encouragement, just helps sufferers cling on to their illness.
“Sufferers become so isolated from their friends and family that they visit these sites several times a day.
“Anorexics do need to share their experiences but they also need to find information on how to fight the illness — rather than being encouraged to worship such a potentially fatal disease.”
The presence of such life-threatening “support” on the internet means victims of anorexia and bulimia are being discouraged from seeking help.
The websites are set up by girls who glory in their illness and who want to share tips with other sufferers on how to achieve maximum weight loss. The person behind
www.beautifulmistake.0pi.com, for instance, wallows in the horrific circumstances that have forced her to become anorexic.
She claims to be a teenage girl and writes: “I don’t know my real father and my step/adoptive father sexually abuses me. My mum knows but chooses to ignore it. She also drinks too much and has issues with her own weight.
“I have a younger brother and I love him more than anything in the world. He’s the main reason I’m not dead already.
“I began having image problems at eight years old. I started my first diet at eight. I began throwing up at 11, and spent my first day starving at 13.
“I’m 17 now and it shows no signs of relenting — but that’s a good thing! I can’t spend the rest of my days fat.
“I’ve been self-harming nearly every day since I was 13. You can find pictures of it on the ‘My Self Harm Pictures’ section of this site. I use anything from razor blades, to knives to broken glass.”
On the self-harm section, she writes: “I removed this page for security reasons. I was 16 when I made this site and am now 18 and it’s harder to hide my disorder from others. Email me if you want pictures.”
The creator of another website,
www.plagueangel.org, writes: “This is a pro-ana website. That means this is a place where anorexia is regarded as a lifestyle and a choice, not an illness or disorder. There are no victims here.”
The idea of receiving help is clearly not on the agenda. But boasting about surviving on fewer than 30 calories per day is.
This is the pro-ana websites’ suggested intake to stop you burning off muscle but still avoid weight gain.
In fact, a healthy woman should have 2,000 calories a day to maintain weight.
Plague Angel is packed with tips on how to avoid eating and beating hunger pangs — so it acts as a guidebook for those with a deep-rooted psychiatric disorder.
Secrecy is a huge part of having a “successful” eating disorder and pro-ana sites dedicate whole sections to “tricks” for keeping the condition under wraps.
There is everything from how to hide the fact you are not eating to using make-up to disguise a sallow complexion.
Visitors can check lists of “ana-friendly” foods — those with few calories and advantages said to speed up weight loss.
www.beautifulmistake.0pi.com advises: “Pickles have about five calories and are good for curbing hunger” and “Espresso coffee works as a laxative”.
Other tips include: “If you have a sweet tooth and need something, only take three bites. Your taste buds are satisfied after three bites. After that you are eating calories.” And: “If you want to stop eating something throw it in the garbage. Make sure it lands in something gross.”
It also recommends using a shimmer lotion to give you a “healthy” glow so no one can say you look pale or grey as skin often does when you stop eating.
It is easy to see why people who want an emaciated look come to depend on these straight-talking sites — a foolproof guide to starving yourself to death. They also feature disturbing images of semi-naked girls, with their bones jutting through their skin.
These are often presented beside pictures of obese women, as a deterrent to those who might break their diets.
Photo wizardry is used to airbrush well-known models and actresses like Gisele Bundchen and Kate Moss so they appear dangerously underweight.
Such pictures are often accompanied with captions such as “beautiful perfection”.
While these pictures shock people unaffected by eating disorders, the pro- anorexic internet community sees the painfully thin image they show as an ideal look.
These websites mean women who should be getting help are starving themselves to look like famine victims.
Steve Bloomfield of the Eating Disorders Association says: “Given that anorexia has the highest death rate of any mental disorder, with one in five untreated cases ending in tragedy, the advice provided by pro-anorexia websites is killing young women.”
RECOVERING anorexic Nancy Carrol came close to death when she dropped to just FOUR STONE.
Nancy, 22, says: “I think these sites glamorising anorexia are disgusting.
“Telling women how to hide their problem and calling ones who look like skeletons a ‘thinspiration’ is also sick. The Government must ban them now.”
Nancy’s problem began when she started a new school when she was 12 and was ignored by her classmates.
She says: “I felt lonely and isolated. I was an only child and didn’t feel I could tell my parents.”
The Milton Keynes schoolgirl started throwing away food, flushing food down the toilet or hiding it in her bedroom drawers.
She says: “One of things about anorexia is it makes you incredibly deceptive. You will do or say anything to avoid food passing your lips.
“As the weight dropped off Mum and Dad started to stress out. We argued lots but I was determined not to eat.”
Mary, 57, a teacher and John, 51, a banker, became increasingly concerned.
At 15, Nancy weighed 4st. She says: “I should have been sent to hospital but mum was brilliant, talking me into eating again.”
Slowly, Nancy’s weight and confidence returned. After doing well in her A-levels, a determined Nancy started university in London.
But after her gran died and her boyfriend dumped her, she again began to starve herself.
Her mum again helped her and, buoyed by her weight gain, Nancy started studies again, this time in Leeds.
But within weeks she was ill. On the verge of death, Nancy checked into the city’s St James’s Hospital where she had to be fed by tube to save her life.
A few weeks later Nancy was transferred to Springfield Hospital, South West London.
"It was like prison,” she says. “It was only after I’d eaten I was let out of my room. I hated every minute but it built up my weight.”
Now 8½st, Nancy says: “Thanks to Mum I hope I’m over it. There is nothing cool about starving yourself. It is far better to be healthy than painfully thin and ill.
“If you think it will make you look glamorous, look at what happened to me.
“At 22 I should have been in the prime of my life but actually I was being fed through a tube.”
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