Urgent action is needed to tackle the soaring number of websites encouraging adolescent girls to starve themselves, doctors said today. The proliferation of “pro-ana” and “pro-mia” websites, which promote anorexia and bulimia, is encouraging growing numbers of young women to wage war on their bodies.
The websites support anorexia as a lifestyle choice rather than a medical disorder. They include messages such as, “I am starting a four-week fast today. Anyone want to join me?” They contain advice on how to get through the pain of extreme hunger after eating a yoghurt a day, or how to hide extreme weight-loss from parents or doctors. Some use pictures of excessively thin models as “thinspiration” for self-starvation.
One million people in the UK suffer from eating disorders, commonest in teenage girls. More than one in 10 girls look at pro-eating disorder websites repeatedly, the Royal College of Psychiatrists says. In a paper today, the college calls on the government to do more to protect vulnerable women. They said the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, set up last year, should specifically target pro-eating disorder websites in its monitoring and educational activities.
Professor Ulrike Schmidt, chair of the College’s Eating Disorders Section, said: “This is not a rare problem; it affects a significant number of schoolchildren. Studies have shown that girls who looked at these sites had low self-esteem, felt bad about their bodies and were miserable. Patients in eating disorders units spend up to 20 hours a week looking at [the websites]. There is a vulnerable group of women who are being sucked into this.”
Read more at The Independent.
Tags: Eating disorders, psychiatry
