As you can see from the title, this post has to deal with my recent realization how instagram unknowingly allows hundreds and thousands of individuals to expose their eating disorder and even get supporters on their quest for thinness. Individuals are posting pictures of their emaciated bodies, asking for support and motivation to starve themselves, and helping to cheer them on when they skip dinner. It is really sad.
This was not the only picture of its kind. People would post "one like=one day of not eating". It made me so angry and sad to see so many likes on someones picture and the comments cheering them on. As discussed in my previous posts, Thinspiration is a big part of the pro-ana world (pro anorexia). People will use images of emaciated bodies as motivation to get thinner. What Instagram does now is create an entire library of #thinspiration photos that eating disordered individuals are using as "goals". A main concern with so much #thinspiration available, is that it may also create not only unhealthy goals, but create competition between individuals, trying to be the thinnest, or trading ideas on how they got to a certain weight. This is dangerous because the wealth of information that is out there is not just how to recover, but how to maintain the eating disorder, which makes it a lot easier for an individual new to their disease to learn a lot of negative information very quickly. too quickly.
#anorexia is another support group (both good and bad) that creates a community for those suffering with it. a mixture of cries for help, pictures liek the one shown above, and quotes saying "nothing taste as good as thin feels". A lot of negative self-talk is most apparent. Its scary that there are so many people out there who are PRO-ANA (pro-anorexia), and they are able to group together to help support each other maintain their eating disorder instead of trying to overcome it. This type of behavior just reinforces their harmful behavior. Especially since Instagram is not really monitored and parents and family might have a hard time accessing a loved ones IG page, there is no one to tell these Pro-Ana supporters to stop. It is also hard to tell if these Pro-ANA people are also suffering or if this is just another form of bullying; others taking advantage of someones vulnerable state and using it to take control and tell someone else not to eat or tell them that starving themselves is the right thing to do. I think i spent about an hour just looking through different hashtags of all these pictures and it is hard not to feel heartbroken for these beautiful individuals. As much as the internet has provided so many resources for eating disorder recovery and recovery groups, negative support is almost as prevalent. Thank goodness there is a report button, and I think I spent half an hour just reporting...
I thought it was GREAT that instagram has this option. Not because I think reporting the picture will cause a great deal of change, but that might create one less "PRO-ANA" picture for those suffering from an eating disorder. Its sad how engulfed these individuals are by their eating disorder. Another great thing that Instagram has done is to put a warning notice anytime someone tries to search #bulimia #anorexia #eating disorders, etc
This made me so happy to know that there are others out there working towards the cause! The internet and social media is a great way to connect, but we never think people are connecting for these types of reasons. #Suicide was really depressing as well, and you would think people would be using this to help them out of suicidal ideations, but there are people out there telling them to do follow thru with their suicide. I think in the future of social media, there needs to be more being done about bullying, abusive/offensive statements, and harassment on these sites. A task force or an entire department should be devoted to the cause. Maybe that could be a prospective venture for me in the future, who knows. lol
What I want everyone to take away from this post, is to be aware of what is out there. BE aware of what is going on in the world, and as for parents to realize what is out there. Especially now teenagers have a lot more privacy when it comes to social networking, they can see a lot of things due to the internet and smart phones that was not accessible 10 years ago. This is one of them. Especially if you have a teen with ED, monitoring all of this is important to make sure they are getting the RIGHT type of support, and not learning tricks of how to hide their eating disorder, or having people support their purging habits.
to all those who are fighting through their eating disorder, keep fighting, you are strong enough, i believe in you.
Pro-Living > Pro-ANA
