Pro-ana
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Pro-ana, short for "pro-anorexia," is a movement and ideal that supports anorexia as a lifestyle choice. The equivalent for the related disorder, bulimia, is known as pro-mia.
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[edit] Pro-ana advice
Pro-ana slogans and rhetoric have often caused miniature storms amongst modern mainstream media outlets, who are starting to realise after a few decades that it's wrong to make people want to resemble cocktail sticks. T-shirts reading "Eat Less" and "Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels" (as endorsed by professional inexplicable entity Perez Hilton) were pulled following a public backlash.[1] At times, claims and "tips" from pro-ana sites can descend into seeming parody, such as advice that "[a]t a certain weight ... you will lose your period. This is a good thing because it means that you’re losing weight." Other advice is downright scary, such as tips on how to hide anorexia from your doctor.[2]
This is incredibly and very dangerously wrong. Passing off a psychological disorder and its potentially lethal health effects as a "lifestyle" choice is exploitative and dangerous. Pro-ana proponents often cross over with breatharianism advocates in their levels of denial.
Put simply, body dysmorphic disorder is a serious mental illness, and not a lifestyle choice to be embraced. Thinking that having a body like models who appear in the media only after being photoshopped is a realistic goal is in no way healthy, and the pro-ana movement promotes unhealthy and highly dangerous behaviors.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Being pro-anorexia is as sensible as being pro-pnuemonia (YouTube)
- An actual pro-annorexia blog. (Please don't click on that link if you're struggling with an eating disorder)
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Jezebel.com — Urban Outfitters Pulls "Eat Less" Shirt
- ↑ PrettyThin.com Ana Beauty Tips at the Wayback Machine (archived December 13, 2011)