Eating Disorders
Pro-Anorexia Websites

There's a battle brewing to contain pro-ana sites and shut them down

Sixteen-year-old Ana is painfully hungry. Ignoring the pangs, she plugs in her favorite web site URL. She comes here for understanding and inspiration -- the kind she can't get from her family and friends. One click. Her friend Jenna, also sixteen, has left a list of commandments on her web site called "Everything For Ana." When your stomach growls hit it. That will make the sound go away and your stomach will be too sore to eat anything. Ana moves down the list. Take a nap. Sometimes when people think they are hungry they are really tired. NEVER eat anything bigger than your fist. One of the last commandments reads, When you get hunger pains, curl up into the fetal position. It really helps!

Far away, in London, Ontario, Janice Saunders enters "Everything for Ana." But she's not relieved to find tips and tricks of the anorexic "lifestyle". Today isn't the first time Saunders has logged onto a pro-anorexia web site. She subscribes to the mailing lists and lurks around message boards to become a part of the tightly knit pro-anorexia community. Like most of the faceless girls that use them, she often visits them with a fake nickname. Then she uses what she sees to fight against it.

As a recovered anorexic, Saunders is pushing to shut down pro-anorexia sites. What if one of her four daughters were Ana? Administrators and participants of the sites are often teenage girls with eating disorders, some of them as young as 12-years-old. "There are girls the same age and younger than my daughters logging on to these sites," says Saunders. "Anyone reinforcing anorexia or trying to glamorize it as a 'lifestyle' should be stopped. It's too dangerous."

Today there are hundreds of pro-anorexia, or "pro-ana" web sites. Their existence was covered in the media extensively in 2001 and then dropped -- but now, two years later, the battle against the sites is mounting.

Opponents object to their controversial and potentially dangerous content. The web sites often offer tips for purging or starving and post pictures of girls with protruding rib cages to inspire weight-loss -- they call it "thinspiration". However, the sites' content varies in severity, ranging from lists of starving commandments, like Jenna's, to low-weight goal comparisons like on fifteen-year-old Ashley McDowell's site. "My site isn't there to encourage other people to be anorexic," says McDowell. "It's just something that helps me cope. It's kind of like therapy for me."

She's fighting to protect her site from those who want to shut it down -- people like her twin sister Victoria, who also suffers from anorexia, but objects openly to pro-anorexia web sites. "My disorder started because of pro-ana sites," she says. "They're deadly. I hate them."

Saunders is one of the pioneers of the movement against pro-anorexia on the net. Her web site, proanorexia.ca, is the home base for her crusade, but instead of promoting pro-anorexia on the web, it warns against it. She hopes potential pro-anorexia victims will stumble across her site and find help. For two or three hours a day she chats on her site's message forum. She also sits on the Eating Disorders Association of London board of directors. She and her husband own a web design company, so she does all of this in her spare time.

Others join Saunders in her fierce pursuit. Heather Boss and Tami Fawcett are two of them. Both have their own anorexia recovery web sites that include diaries and photos of when they ceremoniously smashed their scale. "We used hammers. I pried it open with a screwdriver so we could wreck the insides too," says Boss. "We were yelling at the scale, banging the pieces against the floor, telling each part why we hated it." They took Polaroids and went straight to the scanner so they could be posted online, which has inspired other women to smash their own scales. "Searching for perfection through weight-loss is about the least empowering thing I can think of," says Boss. "I think pro-ana sites are really, well, yuck -- just yuck."

Boss and Fawcett scout for pro-ana sites on the net and pressure servers to take them down, or push search engines to remove them from their listings. With the help of a few friends, they've taken out more than ten sites Charlie's Angels style -- only without the demeaning sex kitten outfits and hair flipping. "It usually comes down to freedom of speech," says Boss. "And that makes it really easy for most servers to fight back. But we're still trying." Most servers include a terms-of-service guideline that allows administrators to remove content they feel is objectionable or dangerous. The most logical way to get rid of pro-ana sites is to convince the server that sites violate these terms, but that hasn't yielded many results for Boss and Fawcett. They've had the most luck asking free search engines to stop listing pro-ana sites. (Yahoo was the first major search engine to remove them from their list service.)

Karin Davis works in a cluttered office with a window that barely gives her sickly stick plant enough light. Davis is the program coordinator for the National Eating Disorder Information Centre. While Davis says pro-ana sites can perpetuate eating disorders, she doesn't necessarily agree with the movement to ban them. "I think everyone is very quick to assume that pulling the sites off the servers is the best response, and I question it," says Davis. "For one thing, we're up against free speech. Plus, by shutting them down they're going to be pushed further underground." According to Davis, more research needs to be done. With supporters already on the defensive, banning the sites could alienate members of the pro-ana community from professionals who can help.

She also stresses the importance of not demonizing pro-ana supporters. "The people creating these are not evil," she says. "They obviously find some sort of support and comfort from connecting to others who are struggling with the same thing. On the flip side, they feed off of each other's problems."

Saunders certainly doesn't want to alienate anyone from the healing community, but she says pro-ana web sites pose too great a threat to be left alone. "I don't want to take anyone's freedom of speech away," she posts on her message board. "I am more interested in protecting minors from information that could potentially harm them and even cause death."

Saunders has made enemies in the two years since her battle began. She's been called a pig and regularly receives e-mail threats. But that doesn't stop her. "While my opinions tend to generate some hate mail, I feel it's important to speak out against something I feel is so harmful," she says. "It's worth it." Regardless of her personal convictions, Saunders' feverishly active proanorexia.ca message forum has created an environment for honest discussion. Only one rule -- no using the site to share dangerous pro-ana tips or to glamorize anorexia.

Davis says we need this type of open discussion about sites that reinforce anorexic behaviour. "Let's look at this as a deeper issue," she says. "Let's look at why these sites exist and talk about it." Davis has discovered at least one positive thing that can come of them: They can provide professionals with a window to the eating disorder community. "We can see how they think, how they behave," she says. "We can actually see what an eating disorder does to a person's mind."

Saunders has a link to one of Davis' articles on her web site. Though the two may not see eye-to-eye on banning pro-anorexia web sites, both women are working to keep people from falling into pro-ana dangers on the web -- Saunders from her home-based internet universe, and Davis from her congested office.

Her leafless twig plant struggles up on the high ledge of her window. It looks like it's on its last leg, reaching up, gasping for air. Davis takes her lunch late today, like most other days. She rises from the mess of papers and reaches up to the high window ledge. On her way out she passes cardboard boxes labeled with post-it notes and a stack of posters that read "celebrating our natural sizes." She carries the skinny potted plant with both hands.

Source: Shift.com

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