Pro-ana promotes anorexia through online communities, encouraging extreme eating, exercise, and thinness. Anorexia is classified as a harmful eating disorder, but pro-ana supporters consider it a lifestyle choice. Pro-ana websites encourage anorexic behaviors and insist that extreme thinness is healthy or ideal. Anorexia is a serious but treatable psychiatric illness, and pro-ana websites have been found to have negative effects on users. Some groups have successfully convinced website administrators to remove or review pro-ana sites.
Pro-ana is an attitude or movement that promotes anorexia, particularly through online communities. These websites are intended to encourage extreme eating, exercise, thinness, and other attitudes and behaviors associated with anorexia. While the movement exists, mental health professionals have still classified anorexia as a harmful and sometimes deadly eating disorder, and ongoing research continues to support this claim. These pundits often attempt to thwart the movement by shutting down pro-ana websites, despite how difficult it is to do so.
Anorexia is defined by pro-ana supporters as a lifestyle choice. As such, the behaviors and outcomes that characterize anorexia are highly valued, such as severely restricting calorie intake, having extremely low body weight, and excessive exercise. Proponents typically consider thinness to the point where skin and bones, but no body fat, are visible as the desired shape. They often reject the medical establishment’s view that anorexia is unhealthy, sometimes arguing that being obese or even being at a healthy weight is the epitome of bodily harm. Anorexics tend to be isolated from others due to criticism and calls to maintain anorexia, but in the late 1990s pro-ana websites began to emerge and, with them, nascent online social communities.
The creators and participants of pro-ana websites usually encourage anorexic behaviors and insist that extreme thinness is healthy or ideal. Jargon may be prevalent on these sites; for example, in addition to “ana” and “pro-ana” to refer to anorexia or its promotion, images of emaciated individuals could be labeled “thinspiration”, with the intention of inspiring anorexics to reach the level of thinness shown. Since the 1990s, many pro-ana websites are now designed to appear less obvious or provide limited access due to criticism from those who say anorexia is not a way of life, but a disease.
As of 2011, the American Psychiatric Association, as well as other medical and mental health professionals around the world, maintain that anorexia is a serious but treatable psychiatric illness. Documented effects of anorexia include heart, gastrointestinal, bone, and skin deterioration or disease; hair loss; increased isolation and depression; and even premature death. Researchers are also discovering the dangers of being pro-ana and using related websites. A study published in the September/October 2010 European Eating Disorders Review revealed that a group of college-aged women with no history of eating disorders significantly reduced their calorie intake after short-term exposure to pro-ana online materials. Although controlling the Internet is nearly impossible, groups such as the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD) have successfully convinced some website administrators to remove or review pro-ana sites.
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