Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty. What the scale says is the most important thing. You can never be too thin. These are only three of the ten “Thin Commandments” that anorexics, or “Anas,” as they call themselves, recite upon waking up every morning.
Lauren E. Gulbas, doctoral candidate in anthropology, led a Brown Bag Discussion on a six-month research she conducted on a pro-“Ana” Web site and its members at the Women’s Health Center Thursday.
Research by the American Health Association suggests that up to one million women suffer from anorexia.
“The death rate [is] nearing 150,000 per year,” Gulbas said, “or twelve times higher than that of any other psychiatric illness.”
Gulbas defined anorexia as a mental disease containing a number of cognitive as well as physical aspects, such as distorted body image and a body mass index of 17.5 or lower.
The Internet has facilitated the emergence of a new trend, pro-“Ana” Web sites where, as the slogans read, “anorexia is a lifestyle, not a disease.”
According to Gulbas, girls with anorexia “congregate on the Internet to become better at being ‘Ana,’ share weight loss tips and build a support system” through these sites.
Although anorexic profiles widely define sufferers of the disease as middle and upper class white females, “Bless Ana,” the website Gulbas researched, had members from many minorities and different socio-economic backgrounds.
According to Gulbas, the reasons why girls choose the “Ana” lifestyle go far beyond the obvious physical motivations. The young women equate being thin with being pure and closer to God, and they also use it as a tool to rebel against society’s norms.
In fact, the devotion that the “Anas” express toward their way of life brings the word Ana to a whole new level: that of a figure of worship.
Gulbas’ research discovered overt religious symbolism in many of the practices on the Web site. She traced starvation as a way to purify one’s self through time, and said although it has never been this pervasive or organized. it is a phenomenon that has occurred in the past.
In addition to the Thin Commandments, “Anas” have also created the Ana Psalm, which reads, “Strict is my diet. I must not want. It maketh me lie down at night hungry” and bears a striking resemblance to the 23rd Psalm of the Bible, which says, “The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” Women on the pro-“Ana” Web sites worship Ana as an ideal, or, as one of them said to Gulbas, “Ana gives power and self discipline for those who look for it.”Gulbas also expressed her interest in the women’s analytical philosophies for being “Ana.”
“They do not see themselves as having a disease, they believe that anorexia is only a disease because that is how society defines it,” Gulbas said.
Being “Ana” is a way to rebel against the fine line society draws between being attractively thin and sickly skinny.
“How do people think I need to gain weight, while they adore all the Victoria’s Secret models?” one of the girls on the Web site said to Gulbas. “Do they seriously think they have three meals a day?”
Regardless of the reasons behind people’s choices to be “Ana,” the disease can cause severe physical harm such as hypoglycemia, the growth of fine body hair or lanugo, cessation of menstrual periods and, in many cases, death. Although a movement to curb the spread of pro-“Ana” sites has been increasingly endorsed, they nevertheless continue to exist. In fact, a petition has been started to allow such sites to exist on the Internet on the grounds of free speech.
“I did my study in 2002,” Gulbas said, “and when I saw the petition, there were already 2,000 signatures on it.”
