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'Ana' is nobody's friend, experts advise

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By Nanci Hellmich
USA Today

A growing number of teens are celebrating their eating disorders on the Web and sharing their tips and strategies for losing weight and exercising to excess. It's a trend that worries and disturbs eating-disorder experts.

"I love the feeling I get when I can feel my bones sticking out. I love feeling empty. I love knowing I went the whole day without eating. I love losing weight. I love people telling me 'you're too skinny!' I hate being this so-called normal weight. I feel like a fat, blubbery, nasty lardbag." So says a posting on one Web site promoting eating disorders as a lifestyle.

And from another site: "I only had three olives, two cookies and some chicken curry today and puked it up."

These comments and hundreds of others are cropping up on dozens of Web sites and message boards where like-minded people with eating disorders, especially girls and women, swap stories and tips. The names of these online discussion areas give clues to their subject matter: puking pals; disappearing acts; anorexiangel; pro anorexia for teens; thinspiration; my friend anorexia; anorexia forever; and chunkeee monkeee/badtothebone.

"These sites don't make sense in terms of getting well," says Bob Berkowitz, medical director of the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "Instead of a support group to get better, this is kind of a support system to stay sick. It's like recovering alcoholics going to a bar together. The scary thing is people can get quite sick and even die from anorexia nervosa."

Anorexia nervosa is a psychological disorder in which a person is fixated on losing weight. Dieting becomes an obsession and spirals out of control. The illness is often tied into issues that involve a poor body image, unrealistic goals for thinness, low self-esteem and fear of growing up. Anorexia can be life-threatening because of the huge weight loss and nutrition deficit.

Bulimia nervosa, which also can be life-threatening, is characterized by bingeing or eating a large amount of food in a short period, then purging the food by vomiting, laxative abuse and/or diuretic abuse.

Participants in pro-anorexia online discussions talk about how important it is to have friends who are like them. They sound euphoric on days when they have eaten very little and offer confessions on days they think they've consumed too much. A typical comment: "I am so proud of myself. It's 4 p.m. and I've only had 240 calories."

They discuss how to hide their weight loss from family and friends, how to use laxatives and how to make themselves vomit. Some say they've had treatment but prefer being anorexic. Others refer to anorexia as their friend Ana or Anna.

Sometimes the sites show photos of super-thin celebrities and models who are their idols or photos of the anorexics and bulimics themselves. At least one site shows photos of girls vomiting.

Kris, who didn't want her last name used, is a 21-year-old college senior in Illinois who has her own pro-anorexia Web site. She told USA Today that participants can go to sites like hers "without fear of being judged or ridiculed. We all are striving to accomplish the same thing, and we are working towards the same goal. We are quite a close-knit family."

Kris has been diagnosed with bulimia but is not receiving treatment. The majority of the people who visit her site or receive her electronic newsletter are already engaged in some type of disordered eating, she says. "Of course this lifestyle is not for everyone. We are not trying to recruit."

Some people are carefully watching the sites. "These Web sites make girls feel accepted. The other girls reinforce them," says Janice Saunders, from London, Ontario, who once suffered from anorexia and depression. She has been following the trend and has a Web site (www.eating-disorder.org/prosites.html) alerting people to the dangers of the pro-eating-disorders sites.