aka Anorexia and Bulimia... a whole cyber subculture I never knew about
Greetings, tout le monde
Maybe I'm out of the loop or something, but only today did I stumble across pro-ana and pro-mia websites -- for the uninitiated, web communities helping people become better anorexics and bulimics.
I was shocked by what I saw and read... these girls (I didn't see any by guys) and their obsessions with their weight, and the "thinspiration" pictures of skeletal models and actresses that these women aspired to look like. Dozens of jagged ribs and knobbly elbows. Advice on how to combat hunger, with a last resort to combating hunger pangs being to curl up into a ball: "it really helps!".
Up until today I thought of anorexia as a private disease, and I was sure that people who knew they were anorexics or bulimics wouldn't want to be, and they certainly wouldn't celebrate it like these websites did. I thought it was something that people were oblivious to, and once they realised they had an eating disorder they would want to stop. Upon reflection I now realise it simply isn't something you can just switch off, and I'm sure that many people with eating disorders know what they're doing and hate it but don't know how to stop.
This was a bit of an eye-opener for me...
Teegs