A misconception of the ideal woman being ‘skinny.’
By Mariam Thomas
RICHMOND, VA: Growing up, a girl is given the too-skinny, but “beautiful” Barbie doll with an unrealistically small waist, paired with giraffe-like legs. During her adolescence, she is incessantly bombarded with media’s portrayal of “perfect” Victoria’s Secret models that have the “ideal” two- inch gap between their inner thighs—which preys upon the deeply rooted childhood insecurity she found when she realized she would never look like her cherished Barbie.
With this standardization of beauty, it is no wonder females employ drastic measures to mold their bodies into perfection—liposuction, plastic surgery, fad diets, and extreme workouts. Added to the list of dangerous methods to fight “ugliness” or also known as the “natural human body,” is Thinspiration.
Also referred to as Pro-Ana and Thinspo, this phenomena involves online forums with roots sunk in popular social networking sites such as, Facebook, Twitter, Tumber, Pinterest. In these virtual spaces, women with eating disorders glorify the condition and further motivate one another through pictures of malnourished, skeletal women and advise on successful starvation techniques.
Interspersed between pictures of faceless bodies with curved in stomachs, visible ribs, space between the thighs, and protruding hip and collar bones, Thinspiration promotes pro-anorexic/bulimic phrases such as , “Bones are clean and pure. Fat is dirty and hangs on your bones like a parasite,” “People who eat are selfish and unrealistic,” and “hunger is your friend it won’t betray you like food has.”
The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) advisor, Claire Mysko asserts, “the trend is a huge issue. It makes its victims partake in self-destructive measures such as, maintaining an extremely restrictive nutritional plan that limits daily caloric intake between zero and 500 calories, daily purging, over-consuming caffeine, which could result in low blood pressure, kidney and liver failure, and even death.” Furthermore she says, “not only is it damaging to the participating individuals, but it’s detrimental to society. These external-beauty driven practices, traps unknowing individuals into feeling worthless unless they have ‘Thinspired’ body, thereby creating an unhealthy society.”
In a survey conducted of 75 University of Virginia students, 63% of the students have already been exposed to Thinspiration. 70% of the exposed first encountered the trend through online social media sites, while 25% came across it through magazines. In a society where the average teen consumes 53 hours per week of various media (University of Haifa), it is alarming to see that Thinspiration is endorsed through these means of entertainment. The European Eating Disorders Review conducted a study where college women, who did not have a history with eating disorders, decreased their calorie intake drastically only one week after being exposed to a few Thinspiration sites.
As of now, NEDA has attempted to create rules that take words like “pro-ana”, “thinsp”, “mia” wording of websites and they have tried to ensure disclaimers appear when users search popular terms. Moreover, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Tumblr have sanctioned policies striving to prohibit harmful content. However, these limitations and prohibitions have limited success as they are very hard to enforce. If a site is shut down for its content, another one simply pops up somewhere else.
With such frequent messages from media, peers and society painting “an ideal woman” as simply skinny, it can be tempting to turn to thinspiration. However, as NEDA stated, “it is a self-harming practice.”
Many of the social media sites are starting to realize that they are being used as a platform to encourage these practices and NEDA is providing counsel to Facebook with regards to guidelines on flagging and removing posts that promote pro-thinspiration.
The communication director of Tumblr, Katherine Barna stated,” We’re reaching out to experts and activists in this area to understand the best approaches for us to take, and we’re still in the process of determining what that is… We’re not interested in Tumblr promoting the acceptability of damaging practices.”
While these steps are being taken, many therapists suggest individuals struggling with thinspiration to find peers who encourage healthy dieting and fitness, joining group fitness classes and gyms that promote a healthy body. These steps are crucial, especially in order to prevent another vulnerable individual from venturing onto to a community of extreme, dangerous dieters, concave stomach admirers, who eagerly wait to “thinspire.”
To contact the author, e-mail: editor@americanbazaaronline.com