Web Sites Provide Forum for Anorexic Girls

Aug. 21, 2001 -- "Dinner: 2 pieces of toast with low-fat, low-calorie jam, 181," reads one entry of an online diary recording the daily intake and calorie count of a girl who has asked ABCNEWS not to reveal her name.

She is 16 and a top student at her high school. And she secretly runs a Web site that promotes anorexia nervosa, a "pro-ana" site, where she offers tips on starvation diets, pills and purges for drastic weight loss.

"I've discovered that it's lonely 'cause you can't tell anybody about it, so you really have no one to talk to," she adds. "And [on] the Internet, you can be anonymous."

Her site is one of as many as 400 locations on the Web devoted to anorexia nervosa, defined by the National Library of Medicine as an eating disorder associated with a distorted body image that may be caused by a mental disorder. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, estimate that 6 percent of serious cases end in death.

After persistent complaints from health groups, Yahoo! recently "delisted" the most popular pro-anorexia sites from its Internet directory. However, it will be hard to shut off a Web community determined to find ways around the ban with a technology that gives girls a new way to talk about their diets.

Through her site, the girl has found a community to support her. She has made several new friends, and receives e-mails every day.

"I get people telling me they're really glad it's there," she says, "where they know there are people like them."

Digging Deeper

Doctors are considerably less enthusiastic about the sites.

"I was horrified. I was shocked. I couldn't believe it," says James Harris, lead therapist of the eating disorder program at the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. "How could someone promote a deadly disease?"

Those who treat the disease say it encourages vulnerable girls to starve themselves, and discourages them from getting help.

"I'm sure at some level it is a cry for help, but the denial is so strong," says Ellen Davis, clinical director of the Renfrew Center of Philadelphia, a foundation that treats eating disorders. "They don't understand they are really in the grasp of a deadly disease."

"I've just realized over the course of my years [of] having [anorexia], people like to consider it a disease," the Web designer says. "But I don't like saying that. I like considering it as a lifestyle."

It would be a lifestyle of diminishing calories and an irrational fear of fat.

"I'm definitely obsessed with my weight," she says. "If I step on the scale in the morning and I haven't lost weight I'm a little upset. But if I've gained weight I go completely insane and I just hate myself for the rest of the day. And then I step on the scale the next day and I've lost a few pounds and I'm happy again."

Survivors Speak Out

Three women in their mid-20s — recovering anorexics — can sympathize with the girl's plight.

"You starve, you die. There's no middle ground," says Meridith Sivigoia. "We've all been down that road."

Suz Dodd says, "Putting this on the Internet is just an example, another symptom of how sick somebody is."

"I'd definitely say they are dangerous," agrees Becca Reitnauer.

However, anorexic girls have other problems to worry about.

"I don't want to be known as the big fat girl at my family reunion," says the girl.