Unlike Any Other Disease: Anorexia “I really gotta start losing weight before spring break,” a 15 year old from Long Island wrote in her blog on Xanga.com, a social networking site. “Basically today I went 24 hours without food and then I ate green beans and a little baked ziti. Frankly I’m proud of myself, not to mention the 100 sit-ups on the yoga ball and the 100 I’ll do before sleep. Yay for me.” (Williams 2).

Anorexia nervosa is an illness that usually occurs in teenage girls, but it can also happen to teenaged boys and adult men and women. People with anorexia nervosa are obsessed with the thought of being and remaining thin. They lose a lot of weight and are terrified of gaining it back. Anorexia nervosa isn’t just a problem with food or weight; it’s an attempt to deal with emotional problems (Siegel 1). To completely understand and comprehend this horrific disease, you must consider the media that includes pro-anorexia websites that include negative support for suffering anorexics, celebrities in Hollywood, and teenager’s peers. Background information and the effects are also vital to the cause of this disease. If we look into any teenager’s experiences throughout middle school and right through high school there are all sorts of negative pressures: to drink, smoke, use drugs. But one of the least visible one of them is all is unforgiving demands to be thin and appear as the famous stars to in Hollywood. Teenager’s peers may put pressure on the so called ‘friends’ to view pro-anorexia websites in order to visualize how they want others to look and for unhealthy support in the cause of this appalling disease. There are many visible signs of a possible case of anorexia nervosa. A great number of suffering anorexics attempt to hide from anyone who will try and stop them or send them away to treatment. If no one helps, that person will die from the effects of this disease. As the body struggles with starvation, it protects itself by slowing down breathing and pulse rates, which in turn lower blood-pressure rates. In females, the loss of a menstrual cycle is normally the first symptom along with dramatic weight loss. The skin of an anorexic will become dry with a yellowish tint. Bones become very brittle from the lack of nutrients from food and drink. Those who starve themselves cannot handle the cold either because they have a small amount of body fat used for warmth. In compensation or low body fat, the body grows a fine coat of thin, soft hair known as lanugos. In severe cases of anorexia nervosa, the person becomes deficient in potassium, which is an important mineral to the body. The lack of potassium will lead to serious health problems, and could end in cardiac arrest (Chang 2). The signs of anorexia are typically evident and should be watched with close caution. Studies have circulated much information on this deadly disease; they show that anorexia nervosa is a genetic disease. In a 2000 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University studied 2,163 female twins and found that 77 of them suffered from symptoms of anorexia. By comparing the number of identical twins who were anorexic with the significantly small number of fraternal twins who has it, scientists concluded that more than 50 percent of the risk for developing this disorder could be attributed to and individual’s genetic makeup (Tyre 3). Although genetics play a huge role in this eating disorder, the new and popular pro-anorexia websites along with other media are creating a developmental head start for this sickness. Media, celebrities and peers have an enormous impact in the approval and acceptance of anorexia. Media is slowly but surely taking over the minds and lives of teenagers. Mainly in teenaged girls ‘pro-ana’ websites are the most harmful and dangerous form of media in the world today. Pro-anorexia sites are websites, message boards, and weblogs where people with eating disorders gather for support and companionship. On pro-ana websites, girls as young as 10 years old share tips for losing weight, tricks for hiding the signs of malnutrition and ‘thinspiration’, which are photographs of bony fashion models (Song 1). Young girls should not be exposed to such harmful material because they are too immature and naïve to see the destruction it can do. Not to say it isn’t wrong for a 26 year old because no matter what age, the media has strange affects on ones feelings of themselves especially one’s body image. The media has shaped many minds and views about how the perfect body should be seen. As you log onto one of many horrendous pro-ana websites out there you are greeted with this message: “Dear you, you may call me Ana: my full name is Anorexia Nervosa, the term used by so-called doctors. If you eat all of your control will be broken. Do you want to revert back to the fat cow you once were? You will always be pathetic, a fat ugly duckling. Your fat drips from you” (Siegel 2). The creators of theses websites put so many negative ideas that are very false. They attempt to portray a girl who weighs an average 130 pounds to instantly become the size of an enormous cow in the instant that they eat a morsel of food. The leaders of these pages put fear that all control will be thrown away if you don’t starve yourself and go onto eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger. It seems nearly impossible for young teenaged girls to avoid viewing these awful websites. Although theses websites can easily be accessed, there have been many attempts to shut down and ban them. For example, in April, France’s lower house of Parliament approved a bill that would penalize magazines, blogs, and websites that promote eating disorders with punishments up to three years in prison or hefty fines of $70,000 (Brandon 1). As creators of the websites face huge fines and jail time, they continue to expose emaciated models and blogs about starvation. There is concern among some eating disorder specialists that some laws banning the websites like the one France just recently passed, would essentially create more of a demand on the website and generate more publicity about pro-ana. When questioned o approving the deadly websites, John Hiler, Chief Executive Officer of Xanga.com, answered in an email, “We have zero desire to host and ‘pro-ana’ groups. If users report them to us, we delete them from our system.” (Williams 3). A psychotherapist and specialist in eating disorders, Elaine Yudkovitz states, “The media has a tremendous influence, impacting on girls to be thin” (Chang 1). Not only are pro-ana websites harmful but so are the dangerously thin celebrities in Hollywood. Many young girls try to achieve the ‘ideal’ body of the emaciated model. As Hollywood portrays beauty as a size zero, the truth is that the average reality television star is a size 2 but the average American woman is a size 14. This distorted view of reality is causing girls to idolize the ‘paper-thin’ stars. Hollywood’s current ‘it’ girl, Keira Knightly is a common face in tabloids and familiar face on the movie screen. Knightly is presented by our media-industrial complex as a completely natural object of male desire, while men attracted to 300-pound women are considered to be in the group of a bizarre fetish. Keira has a body mass that places her in the second percentile of the population. If her weight were to deviate as radically in the opposite direction, in other words if she were in the 98th percentile, she would weight approximately 300 pounds (Campos 2). All forms of media can be detrimental in approving the disease of anorexia nervosa. No matter how long a person has been an anorexic, there is always the likelihood and opportunity for a healthy recovery. A treatment center or a hospital stay can restore a normal body mass or weight. Patients in the early stages of anorexia, which is less than 6 months or with just a small amount of weight loss, may be successfully treated without having to be admitted to a hospital. Anorexia patients often need counseling for a year or more to work on changing the feeling that is causing their eating issues. Some patients are helped by taking anti-depressants to lessen the causes. Psychotherapy also helps address the psychological reasons behind eating disorders and the depression that usually accompanies this condition (Chang 2). Treatment is a difficult task because most patients deny that anything is wrong with them (Siegel 2). Typically, recovery from the disease takes at least 5 years. Media, celebrities, and teenager’s peers are important factors when questioning why a young girl or even boy may have a very serious illness called anorexia nervosa. Researchers have studied and proven that this atrocious disease is linked to genetic factors but other reasons are still people to come down with the sickness. Pro-anorexia websites are a crucial aspect of the media in relationship to anorexia nervosa. The websites favoring and promoting starvation fill the minds of those who visit a particular website. Those who visit are at a potential risk with becoming obsessed at achieving the perfect body they see in a magazine of a popular Hollywood star. People idolize the inappropriate pictures of skeletal bodies on websites and newsstands. Recovery for a suffering anorexic is life changing and very possible. Women should have a different conception of a self body image; we should also not rely at all on the media for opinions or body images. In conclusion, pro-ana websites should be avoided at all costs by any one of any age and there should be a sense of self-confidence to believe that the gaunt supermodel is nothing anyone should want to achieve. If you have anorexia of know someone who does, encourage them to get help. Anorexia does not have to be a lifelong sentence.