Starving and purging together
Chilling online forums promote extremes of dieting as ‘lifestyle’
“I got diagnosed with my eating disorder at age nine. I remember running around because I wanted to lose weight. I remember throwing out food. When celebrating my birthday, I never wanted cake; I wanted healthy snacks and told everybody I didn’t like sweets.
“The disgust I felt towards my body developed during a period of abuse. I was sexually abused by a family member from age five. Starving myself is a way to make it disappear, to vanish, to purify and punish myself.”
This is Jade’s story. Jade is 24 and lives in northeast England. She studied social work at university, but is unemployed “because of the obvious.” Jade runs a website that has thousands of followers around the world. At the top is a banner that reads: “Anorexia is a lifestyle, not a disease.”
But instead of urging people to stop starving, Jade tries to get them to embrace the disorder. “I eat three meals a day, but make sure I never take in more than 50 calories,” she writes. “I can go without food for three or four days. You can do it, too, but it will take discipline and hard work.”
Her attitude is chilling but far from unique.
While many people first knew anorexia as the tragic disorder that claimed the life of singer Karen Carpenter, Jade is part of a growing group of “pro-ana” (pro-anorexia) and “pro-mia” (pro-bulimia) bloggers who perceive their illness as a “lifestyle.”
They’ve turned anorexia and bulimia into an aspirational state.
Writing about pro-ana and promia is double-edged. There’s a danger that any attempt to understand the appeal of the websites will only raise their profile. Dr. John Morgan, who chairs the Royal College of Psychiatry’s eating-disorder section, says raising awareness does carry risks, but is imperative.
Experts say the only way to stop these sites is to get inside the minds of sufferers.
Helen Sharpe, professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, has researched the websites. They are, she says, “incredibly common” and though they don’t cause eating disorders, they can perpetuate them. “Eating disorders can be extremely isolating, and so finding a community of other people who think like you can be a powerful draw.”
Dr. Morgan is conducting a study of 120 patients, which shows that the websites can be detrimental. “It reinforces their existing behaviour, so people who are losing weight lose more. ”
Sarah Robertson was 25 when she was diagnosed with anorexia.
In the throes of her illness, Sarah, now 28, registered on a pro-ana forum and began writing an online diary. “I started posting weight-loss pictures. I’d write what I was going to eat in advance so I was accountable, and I’d be disgusted if I dared eat more.”
Though the highest incidence of anorexia is among females aged 1228, many sufferers are older — and 11 per cent are male. David is in his forties and has suffered from anorexia and bulimia for 30 years.
“I became obsessed with pro-ana sites in 2007 and they made me extremely ill,” he admits. But David says he was “shocked to read young girls of eight or 10 typing things like: ‘Just eaten a cream cracker, please forgive me; I’ve made myself sick and taken 20 laxatives.’”
Beat, Britain’s largest eating-disorder awareness group, is trying to stamp out such comments. Susan Ringwood, Beat’s chief executive, warns: “The people on these sites aren’t always real.
“It’s like grooming. There is a group of people who get sexual satisfaction from looking at emaciated people in their underwear. These individuals pose as young girls (in chat rooms and forums) and encourage others to post pictures.”
But there are also a host of websites that are constructive.
Ruby, 32, runs one such blog. She has lived the “half-life” of anorexia since she was 16. “There is a tug of war going on in my head,” she says. “Recovery or eating disorder. Life or death. Fight or give up.”
Her acceptance that she has a mental illness is clear. Most importantly, she urges her followers to seek help.