Never in my entire life would I think that I would find a group of people, no matter how small, that support eating disorders. Proana stands for promoting anorexia and promia stands for promoting bulimia. When I found this community of people my heart dropped. These people hashtag their pictures and literally write blogs that advocate for the disease and encourage as a good lifestyle choice. Here are some Proana tips from a blog I found called "Thin Intentions" so you can understand my outrage:
- Carry a list of all the reasons you want to be thin and avoid food. Look at it when you want to eat to remind yourself why you won't. Or, write a new list every time you want to eat. It'll distract you, postpone eating, and thinking of the reasons will inspire you.
- Cut a ribbon the size you want your waist to be. wrap and tie it around your wrist like a bracelet. Every time you look at it you'll be reminded of your goals. When you're tempted, take it off and wrap it around your waist. See how close you are, or how far you have to go, and resist the temptation.
- Wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it when you want to eat. Food = pain
- Friends will only get in the way. Avoid them until you reach your goals.
- Never eat in secret. This is a terrible habit that leads to compulsive binging. If you wouldn't eat it in front of all your friends you shouldn't be eating it at all! Also if you only eat around other people they will know that you do eat and assume you eat alone as well, thus lessening suspicion that you have an ED.
Who would do this? Why would anyone want to encourage eating disorders? Do they just like to watch the world burn? I mean the people with these hashtags under their pictures and write these blogs don’t actually have eating disorders, they just encourage them for some twisted reason. I know this because they wouldn’t tell people about it and wouldn't want people to join in their downward spiral and self hate; that’s not how ED works. ED wants you to be in an exclusive relationship with just him and telling people about you two may cause them to intervene: that is not what he wants. If you are truly with ED you don’t want people to break you up.
I spent time in a relationship with ED. I first heard about him in high school when girls would tell me I was fat. He told me the best way to solve this was just to not eat at all. I listened for a while but ED and I only flirted in high school, it was nothing serious. But he came back into my life in college. Society made me hate my body, made me insecure, and ED told me he could solve all my problems and this time I committed to a serious relationship with him. At first it seemed fine when he encouraged me to work out a lot. But he got more assertive and aggressive telling me I could train myself to not eat junk food. He told me to take laxatives every time I ate something he considered unhealthy, which was almost everything. He told me as I spent hours in the bathroom with cramps and pain to remember how this feels and never eat unhealthy food again. He told me this was a great idea because no one was noticing. He told me that if I couldn’t find laxatives throwing up was a great second option because if I combined laxatives and throwing up no one would be able to see the typical signs. ED would go everywhere with me. He would whisper in my ear during class while I was trying to listen and tell me that everyone was looking at how fat I looked today. He made me take him home for the holidays. He would tell me not look in a mirror and turn the lights off when I changed because I was repulsive. He would tell me to hate myself, and I did. Eventually ED told me to stop going anywhere there was food, which is pretty much everywhere. He said maybe I should eat less with the laxatives and maybe that would help me. He told me less and less calories every day. ED made sure that depression and anxiety helped eat away at my soul as I ate away at my physical health and made sure no one noticed.
Eventually ED couldn’t be kept a secret and we broke up, but he still tries to revisit me from time to time. Being involved with eating disorder behavior is not funny and not something to support. It kills people, destroys lives and relationships, and can be very difficult to overcome. For people to make light of is to make light of a serious disease. It’s not okay and it’s not funny because getting into a relationship can have devastating effects.
