Ana and what? I thought while preparing that entry in which Dr. José Luis Pedreira told us that the dangers of the Internet are not limited to inappropriate behaviors (sexting, and others), but that the contents should be monitored, something that I thought I had controlled. But to my surprise, that day I discovered (not very pleasantly, the truth), that there are pages that incite suicide, and others (Ana and Mine) that do the same with Anorexia and Bulimia, to give two examples.
At that moment I felt as if I had 'fallen from the cherry', and at the same time satisfied to have discovered that it can be very disturbing for young people, and that it can do them a lot of damage, although when calling their computers, they disguise themselves as Help to achieve perfection.
Perfection? All the life of my children explaining that there is no perfect human, so that now I have a page pro Ana or pro Mia, and tell them that they do not harm anyone defending these two eating disorders ...
Well, that they do not hurt anyone, we should clarify a lot, if not deny it. But yes, people who participate in this trend are allowed to seek that perfection that takes me out of the boxes, and they claim that one gram of more are kilos of less happiness.
Impossible to be happy if you seek to be perfect, impossible to be free if you are pending on the opinion that others have about your body; It's what I think and what I feel.
As you read, in addition to being worried about the excess of violence, or about pornography ahead of time, we now have to be aware of these pages. However, the phenomenon is not new, since it was in the 1990s when it spread from the United States to England. Is about defenders, defenders of anorexia and bulimia who offer their experiences in blogs, and dress them with quasi-impossible diets, tips to self-harm or tips to successfully complete efforts to hide food without anyone seeing it, among others. The wrapper has just been decorated with a supposed defense of freedom of expression.
It also warns from these blogs that it is not a game, and that they do not provide weight loss diets, but directly 'worshipers' of a life model whose goal is to weigh a maximum of 50 kilos. The Ana and Mia pages (you will find them everywhere, I find it repulsive to give you examples) are not illegal in our country, although Apologize for diseases that cause suffering to children and their families, and even knowing that sometimes one of those children ends up in the hospital turned into a skeleton with glued skin.
Ana and Mia are neither princesses nor your daughter's friends
That ahead, let it be clear ... although now I am rationalizing in a way that teenagers do not always know how to do. Sometimes it is thought that these eating disorders cause low self-esteem due to poor self-concept, I do not say that it is not so, but there are more factors, such as an excess of external stimuli that impact our children (and do not always bounce, since they penetrate your mind).
I think we can't stop being alert, and it wouldn't be useful to think 'alas! but my son is very responsible, how could he do something like that? ', no, our children are developing people, influential and eager to fit into their environment
Anorexia and bulimia are unpleasant, let's not fool ourselves: throw up what has just been eaten, give up eating even if you are hungry, see how conflicts are chronicled at home ... However there are the princesses, and the princes of the kingdom of Ana and Mia, to show its followers, all the good things that these disorders have. Also, as are her friends, they understand her suffering (I read this and I want to get out of this world, do not believe, but with my children by the hand).
What happens is that the expected prince (I do not invent it) never comes up in his steed, and the girl remains skeletal, lips dehydrated from vomiting so much, and unable to live a normal life.
Thus, those affected have their support in the network, how to combat the hope of being princesses of 45 kilos with a porcelain face ?, How to do it when you have found in one of these pages the photographs of the thinnest celebrities? How beautiful they are! (It is clear irony), let's see if we want to throw the blame on children with anorexia or bulimia, if the first ones who follow the dictates of beauty trends (outside, it is understood) are us.
An unkind kingdom dressed as beauty
It is unkind because it is the equivalent of a group of teenagers closed abroad with the ability to decide rules outside society, and to force their followers to move away from their environment, that is ... from those who can help them.
But it is clear, there is no one against people with anorexia or bulimia, and nobody wants to make them fat to be handsome (eating disorders disguised as mental disorders? ... there are shots). 'Beware of gaining weight because obesity is terrible', let's see: obesity is a disease that worries the truth, but you can't get away from insecure and over-confident young people, just because there are obese people (who in turn would like to feeling better) in the world, what nonsense is this?
The terminology of these two 'disturbing girls' (I speak Ana and Mia) is full of easy-to-learn words: self-injuries are self-management, and 'thinspo' inspiring models because of their physical appearance, 'reverse thinspo' are not suitable to follow, due to their overweight - It is very motivating because the disgust is instilled towards them (horrible, I know) -. A 'wannabe' is a beginner, and the Alisa are new additions to the club of nonsense, only organic food, and raw, no additives, another way of calling orthoxics.
They are ways of expressing oneself to locate them in the network when they are needed, and in the other life (the face-to-face) red bracelets are put on if they are pro Ana (Anorexia), purple if they are pro Mía (Bulimia); and they insert white ties in blogs, or hang them in the school folder, to be noticed as followers of this "lifestyle".
Let's see if we wake up now and get down to work
... it won't be that this gets out of hand. Because we all know that the ideal is to eat a balanced diet for health, that if this is done it is easier to feel comfortable with yourself. Do children also know it? Do you know how want your body despite the imperfections? Do you know how to find your place in the world with all the 'garbage' that society puts in your head? And do parents know how to be prevented? And talk to them to know their concerns? Would we notice the changes if it happened?
According to Protégeles, 17 percent of children who surf the web visit pages that apologize for anorexia. Come on, but if at the age they are in, they don't even have their value system and their protection against the worldHow do we let them do that without at least discussing what they have seen?
Precisely Protégeles designed a Campaign some time ago, called 'You are more than an image'; and makes available to families a website called "Anorexia and bulimia, a false world."
What to do? On the one hand there are supporters of the ban, for example in France there is a law that can condemn the authors of these websites to imprisonment and fine. On the other, the supporters of fighting with the same weapons: if Ana and Mia use their followers to send false messages to young people, why shouldn't we make our own? Why don't parents, society, therapists also use the power of writing to contact these girls and these boys? Campaigns, preventive blogs, proven messages.
In fact researchers from the University of Maastrich, conducted a study by placing warning messages about the content and intentions of 150 websites that performed apology for Eating Disorders, the strategy was presented as promising. On the other hand, the closing of pages, discourages only temporarily, it is also not uncommon that after the reappearance the access to the chosen ones is restricted (thus they ensure that there will be no interference).
Of course, whenever allusions to the convenience of making cuts or attempting suicide were detected, the page should be censored, it is more than obvious, because we already add quite extreme violence. The cuts usually come from the belief that calories are burned.
Tips about Anorexia and Bulimia? today I will not go into it, but here we explained how to detect, and here how to prevent. Just specify that if you have to find a specialist to treat a sick teenager, I would look for someone who knew about the subject, and that he had some experience treating patients with these disorders.
On the other hand, I know that parents are able to detect any lasting and harmful change in children, what happens is that sometimes it takes us a while to find the solution because of the false belief of spontaneous resolution, but things are not like that in life real.
I tell you because it's a danger that is there, and I personally still didn't even know; In fact, while I was thoroughly documented to make this entry, I could not help wondering if I should pinch myself to see if I was in a kind of nightmare.
Images | Olga Berrios, Christy Mckenna
In Peques and More | Society transmits biased beauty canons, but from the family we can educate children. Interview with Marta Ampuero, Why do eating disorders appear in young children?
