Pro-Ana Groups & Thinspiration

Currently Listening to: Saeglopur by Sigur Ros

Currently Watching: Anderson Cooper on CNN

Remember that Anorexia Bulimia helpline commercial I mentioned a few posts ago in the post about food? Well, I have been recently browsing through the comments in response to it. Most of the comments are the type one would expect, talking about how creepy it was, how the song was a great affect, how it perfectly displays the nature of the disorder and such. However, I began to also come across comments that were talking about the girl in the mirror was fat. I won't even get into that, I was pissed. But I clicked on the links of some of the people who were saying this and linked to it I found numerous footage of fashion shows and "Thinspiration" bits. People who create Thinspiration pieces are generally a part of Pro-ana and Pro-mia groups.

For those who are not familiar with these terms, I'll fill you in. Pro-ana and Pro-mia are groups dubbed after term of endearments for the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia. They argue that these eating disorders are lifestyle choices rather than illnesses. They create a support group, not on the road to recovery, but on the road to starvation, skeletal bodies, and eventually death. They give little tips on how to trick the weights at the doctors office so they'll think your healthy, how to hide it from people, and other things of that nature. Many of them have the philosophy that "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels " and "Starve me beautiful." These groups make "Thinspiration" bits, slide shows containing pictures of really skinny models as a goal or obese people as an anti-goal. Like the rest of there little darlings, they give thinspiration pieces a little nickname as well: thinspo.

Though I try to keep in mind the Anorexia is a mental illness and that these people truly believe that skeletal is beautiful, the first time I looked at a Thinspiration slide show I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to severely hurt whoever created it. It is one thing to suffer from a disease, it is another to glorify this disease, and make it into something it's not. In these thinspo piece they talk about their pain, as though people are supposed to feel sorry for them, yet they are inflicting it upon themselves (supposedly.) It's easy to sympathize with someone suffering from a terrible disease, but it's a whole other dimension when you want to be in denial and glorify it as a twisted lifestyle.

I'm not going to deny that I take a level of personal offense. I'm not skinny (I belong in the Renaissance) and though I know it isn't directed in any way towards me, I can't help but take it almost as though they are calling me fat. Then there is, of course, the matter that they are promoting this, trying to make it sound glamorous. It's disgusting. They totally disregard the medical and scientific aspects of eating disorders (like creationists are of science) while wallowing in self-pity. It's people like them that aid these girls in hiding their problems from the world and feed into their psychological delusion so they can avoid getting help. Indirectly, they are being assistants to suicide.

Not that our environmental factors don't contribute. We live in a society where was Nicole Richie chubby (God, she looks terrible now) and where every model on the runway is a stick. Not skinny (even skinny women have some form of curves) but twigs. Some designers use unhealthy models because they're like angular hangers, nothing actually needs to fit on them, makes their clothing look better. We live in a sad world when a model who is size 8 is considered a plus size model and they sport clothing that are for size 14. MaraJoara used a variety of women during one of their swim suit fashion shows (and from the pictures I've seen they were all quite beautiful and for once they used a variety of women, including skinny women, not twigs) and was criticized for it. In the fashion model world you're a fatass if you're above a size 2. It's ridiculous.

If you want to read an amusing blog entry on the MaraJoara fashion show: http://pandagon.net/2006/09/09/quit-eating-goddammit-vogue-magazine-is-supposed-to-be-hefty-not-the-women-in-it/

I have, however, seen spirited testimonies from recovered eating disorder victims, that give strong messages to the disgusting nature of these groups that glorify these terrible illnesses. Users such as eniwekwe talk about their personal experiences in a straightforward, blunt manner that can speak to people and save them. I thank God for that.

Good lord. We've gone from beauty being Botticelli's Venus, to Marilyn Monroe, to...Twiggy? Ideal beauty through the ages never ceases to amaze me or (nowadays) disgust me for that matter. But that is going to be a whole other post!