PrettyThin

There has been a lot of debate on this site about what the term really means. Can Pro-Ana ever have a positive connotation?

There are those - even those on this site - who will say that anorexia is not an eating disorder. There are others who see it simply as that, and something that they wish to work through and treat through a process of recovery. There are people who see out the term pro-ana in order to find people that can give them dieting tips. In their view "we" are the experts on diets and tips to lose weight.

The problem with coming to grips with all this is a lot of us have a hard time defining what ana actually is. Eating disorder aside, what is (or for some, who is) Ana?

Is this Ana?

I will never forget my health class when I was in seventh grade. My teacher told me that someone who had anorexia was someone who was skinny, but looked in the mirror and saw themselves as fat. I took it literally, the way this image depicts. But is "fat" really how someone who is anorexic sees themselves? 

There are a lot of people who see themselves as fat. I haven't worked out in a year and I say that I am fat. I say it jokingly because anyone who knows me will immediately say I'm skinny and I agree. But I am getting older and there is a layer appearing around my belly.

So we're talking about extremes....
You'd be surprised. It's often harder to spot someone who is anorexic (or maybe in your view pro-ana) and it is to spot someone who is "European or American." Ever play that game? They, we, her, him - don't come in a mold that's stamped "Ana - for export only."

Or is this Pro-Ana?

The term is something I have been familiar with for a long time. It simple meant (a site) glorifying a life-style of anorexia (and/or bulimia); making it a friend and making food the enemy. For a lot of people, this is a distorted view. After spending so much time with PrettyThin, I will not say that it is not a distorted view now. But my eyes weren't really open to understanding what an eating disorder was until I read an email from a member.

A member of PrettyThin defined being pro-ana in this way. 

Pro-ana was the term used to describe sites that catered to eating disorders (usually anorexia). The first wave movement started back in 2001 as a means for other anorexics to connect with each other so as not to suffer in silence. It gained popularity rapidly, and with the help of media spotlights rose to remarkable increase in visitors to the sites. This rise was both good and bad. Good in that it brought light to the whole movement and the anorexic rights issue, and others who wanted to reach out for help with no where to turn was now able to seek out others. Bad in that a sudden wave of people wanted to get anorexia, and thought that being on the forums would give them the "ana diet." Over time the media has blown this term way out of proportion and making it out to be such rediculous ideals as "cults" and that the owners were "recruiting" others into an anorexic lifestyle. The very notion that the internet will give you an eating disorder is lewd to begin with. It's not a computer virus that will infect you too. However, through all of these blatent lies about the movement, some were lead to believe in what the media preached about it and began believing in it themselves ... including anorexics. Several sites started popping up as "hard core" and were the very thing pro-ana was not. Not all hardcore sites are bad however, but the majority are not real ones. Many first wave sites never lasted long, and there are very few left that are done in the true first wave style. And of the ones out there today, they are all mere copycats of the first wave sites (in content and material).

This content is from Ms. Stephens-North works at Harvard University
http://cambridgecommon.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/rejecting-the-?enigma-of-anorexia-nervosa?-justice-and-the-pain-of-the-anorexic-woman/

The article was created on 1/01/2008 and published online 02/26/2008

Coming soon - from the members of PrettyThin - pro-ana defined.

For more on their experiences with it, check out the ana stories. 

It's this....