Surprising new research sheds light on the real face of eating disorders–and how the Internet is putting teens at greater risk than ever.
Ask a teen for a typical profile of someone suffering from an eating disorder and most will have the same stereotype: “Pop culture makes it seem like it’s a sickness that mainly affects wealthy white girls,” notes seventeen-year-old Mattie from New York City. Likewise, nineteen-year-old Samantha, also from New York City, imagines that the person would be Caucasian and from an affluent background. “People picture someone like Marissa Cooper from The O.C.,” she says, referring to a young and glamorous tv character who struggled with the illness. There’s also the pretty and privileged Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl. And on the newsstands, photos of waiflike Hollywood starlets are splashed across tabloid covers with headlines asking if anorexia is to blame.
A recent study, however, is shattering this widespread perception. According to research from the University of Southern California, African-American girls are actually 50 percent more likely to be bulimic than white girls, and the risk is higher for girls who come from families with lower incomes. These findings are surprising, but the explanation for them makes sense, says Michelle Goeree, assistant professor of economics at USC and a co-author of the study. “Much of the research that has been done on eating disorders only looked at young people who were already diagnosed,” she points out. “If a girl who is bingeing and purging is from a low-income family that doesn’t have insurance, she’s less likely to visit a doctor or psychiatrist who can diagnose her with bulimia. So, sadly, she and others like her have been overlooked.”
Lynn Grefe, CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), agrees that differences in income and insurance coverage have created a skewed perspective on who is impacted by this devastating condition. “Hasidic Jewish, Asian, and Latin girls–these groups are all being ignored when it comes to talking about who might be affected,” she adds. NEDA is working on passing a bill in New York that would require all doctors, physician’s assistants, and nurses to receive education in recognizing eating disorders before getting re-licensed, ensuring that even girls in low-income areas who go to clinics could be seen by a physician familiar with the signs of disordered eating.
While the USC study reminds us that eating disorders can affect anyone regardless of race or
ethnicity and socioeconomic status, a new report highlights another important facet of this health issue: The
Internet’s growing role in possibly triggering the disorders. Since 2006, the number of pro-anorexia (often called “pro-ana”) and pro-bulimia (”pro-mia”) Web sites has ballooned by 470 percent, according to Optenet, an information technology security company. Many of these sites contain harmful content, like crash-dieting tips, photos of emaciated figures that serve as “thinspiration,” and advice on how to hide an eating disorder. Pro-ana and pro-mia groups are also popping up all over Facebook. Though Facebook employees search for and delete these groups (since they violate the site’s terms of use by promoting self-harm), many of the groups are now private, and therefore cannot be found in a search.
These Web sites are dangerous, stresses Gail Purvis, director of the Renfrew Center of New York, an eating-disorder treatment facility. “Eating disorders are serious medical and psychiatric conditions that can threaten a person’s survival,” she says. “Girls who visit those sites should ask themselves: If I am sick, will I get better help from someone with the same sickness or from a doctor or therapist who understands the nature of the illness?” A Stanford University study found that young eating-disorder patients who visited pro-eating-disorder sites stayed sick for a longer period of time than patients who didn’t view them. Some pro-ana sites claim that they provide support for people with eating disorders and do not condone the behavior, but Purvis dismisses this. “It’s not real support that they give–it’s more like shared misery,” she says.
Nineteen-year-old Nicole* from New York learned that lesson firsthand. For almost two years, she visited pro-ana Web sites in search of weight-loss tips, but luckily for her, the experience opened her eyes to how unsafe they were. “Visitors of these sites were looking for sympathy from each other, but they were learning new eating-disorder behaviors,” she says. “I realized how foolish their beliefs were.” Rachel, nineteen, from North Carolina also decided to shun such sites after checking some out for a binge-eating disorder she’s struggled with for ten years. “The sites contradicted what my parents, therapists, and doctors were saying,” she recalls. “Eating disorders should be evaluated by professionals, not by a random person on the Internet who can say anything he or she wants.”
On the plus side, the popularity of cyberspace communication has made teens more open to discussing eating disorders than in the past. “The more willing someone is to acknowledge her illness, the more likely she can find help and get treated,” Grefe says. The key to getting healthy is to talk to a family member, a trusted teacher, or a help-line–a person who truly cares for your well-being. “Turn to someone who can support you getting better,” Grefe advises, “not sites that are treating sufferers of eating disorders like a cult society.”
*Name has been changed.
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