since i was 13 years old eating disorders have bothered me. i think it was my young friend from grade school who decided that eating was no longer worth it and slowly killed herself with anorexia. 5 years ago when i became homeless for a Summer i did forfeit food but it was not based on control or proving myself it was because of circumstance. i know i lost weight that Summer but the pressure of being in a women’s shelter and often only managing to get 5 hours of sleep a night for more than a month took a huge toll on me.

i can even recall a guy i dated back in 2002 who complained that my thighs rubbed together and at the time i was a healthy size 6. i just did a search on pro-ana on google and found 18,400,000 sites. with mantra’s and “diet” tips. i would call it starvation tips. anorexia is a serious issue and to think that controlling once appetite with cigarettes and using exercise in an unhealthy way is no way to live. 

i am aware that i have gained weight in the past couple of years but i am now beginning to lose weight the healthy way by eating smaller portions and making sure that i don’t eat after 8pm at night. for me losing this weight is not a race–but i also gained because of my medication which wrecked my motivation and left me in a haze on the couch. 

now, the new trend is feeding tubes and restrictive dieting to 800 calories a day. when the daily caloric intake should be about 1,200 calories that’s not healthy. pro-ana is not as hard to hide as movement may think. using protein shampoo and sitting but not eating your lunch is always a sign that there are issues with food. i have a tell when comes to spotting women who are pro-ana-i see if their arms are all bone or if they muscle in upper part of the arm. a sign that a woman is several underweight is like this morning when i was walking the dog she had a coat on but all i could see was bone.

because being pro-ana is actually psychiatric issue telling someone to eat more when they are pro-ana doesn’t work. usually appetite suppression comes with mental illness and sometimes severe trauma-rather than dealing or getting help for those issues women use food as the controller along with calories. however, neither fixes what the psychological issues are. the media doesn’t help these issues either with the uber-UN-healthy models in magazines, on TV and on the internet and of course the perfect abusive boyfriend/husband constantly telling women that they are “fat” when in fact they’re not is another factor.

it’s sad how our culture through this global recession has either become morbidly obese or pro-ana. the difference is so great and massive and so sad. i do want to get back to my size of 6-8 but it’s no rush-as long as i am eating healthy and taking care of my mental health i am sure everything will fall into place. as for the rise of anorexia in the US-i think many bright young women will succumb and die in a needless way for an ideal that should never have been placed on them in the first place.