Pro Health, Ban Pro-Ana/Buli

TheSkinnyBanana

Also... you know this is "the internet"?

You can't really ban things.

You can censor them in your country to some degree.

^^^This. Absolutely correct.

xxbookwormbabexx

its all well and good, but the constitution calls for freedom of speech so they should do whatever they want.
and who would decide if something is healthy/pro mia or not? what if there is a picture of just a skinny girl, should that be BANNED from the internet blogs everywhere? the line of healthy/unhealthy is sometimes blurry.
i agree with you that those blogs are unhealthy and shouldn't be on the internet, but the moderators of those blogs have just as much right as anyone to exercise their constitutional rights.

I think I know someone who did not listen in civic class...

This is a private site. They can ban posts from people who have curly hair if they want and not infringe on your freedom of speech one bit.

It is only against the Constitutional protection of free speach when a Government entity does not allow you do say it.


not the same thing.

/rant

YES, THANK YOU! Also, the internet is not America.

This. All this.

geebusuk

I don't understand how anyone can support this (it's out of ignorance).

Hopefully I can help educate you out of your ignorance, then .

It's not a case of supporting the sites in question for me and I suspect a hell of a lot of others.

It's about freedom and lack of government intervention.
About how authoritarianism to my mind causes more problems for more people than it solves with those it's targeting.

Remember 'wikileaks'?
If you googled for 'wikileaks' just after the big controversy, google didn't return the site. Despite that it should have reasonably been the first result. This sort of thing is exactly what "the west" criticises various countries in "the east" for doing. Information is power and people do like to control it.
If you try and find information about what sites some countries censor, you'll find that information is also censored by said countries.
It's only a rather small step from that to censoring people discussing censoring. Then people discussing other anti-establishment ideas and so on.

AbsoluteNG

There should be a bigger spotlight on being fat as it causes diabetes type 2 but fat people are overly sensitive. Anexoria only affects an extremely small population so it's okay to post pictures of people who are aneroxic. Anexoria can be solved by eating more but diebetes type 2 is forever and impacts almost half of the industrialized world, in America at least.

nikinonsense

Eating disorders are a complex mental illness. Some girls who are "pro ana" are not necessarily anorexic. In my experience those girls go through a phase and grow quickly out of it. For some yes, those sites can trigger an eating disorder. I find that mostly the people who use those sites, post and complain about it are not actually suffering from an eating disorder, more suffering from a lack of attention and trying to find themselves in an unhealthy manner. Some recovery sites people mistake for "pro ana/mia" when that really isn't the case.

^ I agree with what she said.

Bentley2718

I'm sorry but this is not a problem that is going to be solved with censorship. As for women "learning" to become bulimic or anorexic, these disorders were around well-before the internet, and people who have not consciously had contact with other people with eating disorders develop them.

asamuels85

There should be a bigger spotlight on being fat as it causes diabetes type 2 but fat people are overly sensitive. Anexoria only affects an extremely small population so it's okay to post pictures of people who are aneroxic. Anexoria can be solved by eating more but diebetes type 2 is forever and impacts almost half of the industrialized world, in America at least.

you do not have a clue buddy!

zombie_porno

As someone with an eating disorder, I do agree that the "pro ana/mia" sites are not healthy.. However, nobody has the right to ban people from discussing whatever they like. There are websites on how to make bombs that are covered by freedom of speech, meaning this should be covered too.

PLUS nobody develops an ED because of a website or because of being around other people with an ED. It isn't contagious or something you can learn. They are a very complex mental disorder that is not understandable by anyone without one. These websites do not cause more GENUINE eating disorders any more than fashion media does.

geebusuk

Uuum, this sounds like paranoia to me, actually.

Care to point out which bits?
All of the non-opinion is pretty easily verifiable fact.
The opinion is, well, my opinion which I can verify is my opinion .

AbsoluteNG

There should be a bigger spotlight on being fat as it causes diabetes type 2 but fat people are overly sensitive. Anexoria only affects an extremely small population so it's okay to post pictures of people who are aneroxic. Anexoria can be solved by eating more but diebetes type 2 is forever and impacts almost half of the industrialized world, in America at least.

you do not have a clue buddy!

When's the last time you walked into a grocery store and saw someone anorexic? Never personally seen one in my entire life but I've seen plenty of people who are overweight, fat, and obese. All of which are at risk of Diabetes type 2, heart diseases, and also dying an early death.

SuperstarDJ

Uuum, this sounds like paranoia to me, actually.

Care to point out which bits?
All of the non-opinion is pretty easily verifiable fact.
The opinion is, well, my opinion which I can verify is my opinion .

Regardless of whether it's paranoia or not, these are sites where teenaged kids are supporting each other in a slow suicide! It is completely different. I have spoken to a mother who lost a daughter to this disease & said that there was pro-ana material on her laptop. Didn't cause it but didn't help either.

geebusuk

Actually, the poster below makes a point that made me think.

I think, as sadly happens in to many situations - I shall just censor myself.
Freedom is an illusion, etc .

amunet07

I tried to post a topic similar to this...purely neutral but wondering if there were these pro people disguised on this site and everyone about lynched me...obviously didn't read just saw the "term" be careful this topic is a fire storm that will get well meaning people banned from this site.

arcticfox04

Everyone has right to free speech and live there life the way they want to in America. The only thing you can do is tell them they need help. Eating Disorders is just like drug addictions. They ruin themselves while everyone watches only a few can change there mistakes and learn from it. I hate to say some people are lost but its could be all they know or don't think they do.

I think MFP should have have more information about eating disorders in clear sight to users. Also they should flag users that log low calories under 800 Gross Calories after 1-2 weeks and send them information that they could suffer from ED. Also there should be a Eating Disorder section on the community forums for users that want to reach out and get help.

kennethmgreen

"Should they also ban people who promote binge drinking, sex with multiple partners, reckless living, and things of that nature?
Those are also disgustingly unhealthy lifestyles that can lead to illness or death. Really, what's the difference?"

_____________________________________________

Absolutely. Everyone has their struggles, all different. Anessa, have you ever stopped to think that maybe MFP can help those who are battling eating disorders (anorexia and etc.)?

It's a tough call sometimes. Does someone who shares their story - their struggle with bulemia, with substance abuse, etc. - and describes some unsafe behavior encourage that behavior by describing it? You could say it's the context or tone. But that's hard to govern. I think you can try to ban the most egregious examples of "undesired" behavior, but it's never going to be clear cut.

Trying to distinguish how reckless a behavior is won't produce a standard we can all agree on. Some behaviors are more dangerous than others for sure. But how they are talked about it has multiple factors to consider too.

Even with the relatively clear guidelines here (no pro-ana posts), I would imagine there are some gray areas. Does talking about something encourage behavior? This is a similar argument some groups use to keep sex education out of schools.

I think you have to weigh the cost of banning discussion of topic X with the possible benefit of people getting help by talking about topic X. Of course, a privately-owned entity can do almost anything it wants, set its own rules. The idea of "free speech" really doesn't apply to MFP forum threads.

jus_in_bello

Censorship is one of those slippery slopes, once you start to ban things it is easy to ban other things, Tumblr can ban whatever it likes, I haven't seen many tumblr sites that try to "recruit" people to their eating disorder, I have seen plenty of sites that have tips and offer help to fellow ED people.

As someone in recovery I know to avoid those blogs, I know to avoid tags/key words/etc, most of us do.

There are plenty of tumblrs that promote high risk sex or glorify drug use, both of which can be as harmful as an eating disorder, where is the line when it comes to censorship? Luckily, we don't have to figure that out. I believe that tumblr does have a ban (I believe it is a ban anyway) on blogs that promote disordered eating. You can always start a petition or raise awareness about the blogs and try to do something to get them removed if you feel strongly about it, discussing it on MFP, where it is already banned, isn't going to get much accomplished.

kaylabrianna

If I hear someone say its a ''phase'' again I swear... :mad:

SuperstarDJ

There should be a bigger spotlight on being fat as it causes diabetes type 2 but fat people are overly sensitive. Anexoria only affects an extremely small population so it's okay to post pictures of people who are aneroxic. Anexoria can be solved by eating more but diebetes type 2 is forever and impacts almost half of the industrialized world, in America at least.

you do not have a clue buddy!

When's the last time you walked into a grocery store and saw someone anorexic? Never personally seen one in my entire life but I've seen plenty of people who are overweight, fat, and obese. All of which are at risk of Diabetes type 2, heart diseases, and also dying an early death.

Aaaaagh!!!! **Pulling my hair out** Firstly, if you're hoping to spot an anorexic, the grocery store is probably not the best place to be looking... Just saying... All joking aside, what do you think somebody with an ED looks like? We come in all different weights, shapes and sizes. Extremely underweight anorexics are the minority. EDs kill more people than AIDS in the western world and have the highest mortality rate and highest suicide rate of any psychiatric disorder. Type 2 diabetes is a LOT easier to treat and prevent.

Anorexia (or any EDs) CANNOT be solved by eating more!!! That's like saying depression can be solved by smiling. As has been said here already, EDs are complex, psychological disorders that come from the mind, not an appetite issue. I have been forced to gain weight on a number of occasions, which never solved the problem but in fact made it 100 times worse.

To the person who posted the above, I am not attacking you personally, your views are unfortunately the views of many.

kennethmgreen

Anorexia (or any EDs) CANNOT be solved by eating more!!! That's like saying depression can be solved by smiling. As has been said here already, EDs are complex, psychological disorders that come from the mind, not an appetite issue.

I like this example. It's a good reminder that we're dealing with a mental health issue, not simply eating more food. Similar to the idea that alcohol consumption is a symptom of alcoholism. It's not the booze itself that makes someone alcoholic. You can remove the alcohol and someone is still an alcoholic.

kinrsa

I feel a bit like a hipster saying "I had an eating disorder before the internet," but it's true. I started at 6. I didn't see my first "pro-ED" site until I was 18 & I found the address in Time Magazine.

I could do a google image search for "thin" or "model" and come up with as many "thinspo" pics as you would find on an ED website. And the tips are silly- things you'd find on any fitness board taken to an extreme. I never went to ED websites for any of that. I went for the community.

Eating disorders are terrible, lonely, scary, all-encompassing things. It's not something you admit to. Depression is often a dual diagnosis with an ED- that's another mental illness that makes you feel like the world's most dysfunctional person. It helped to know other people like me, at the time. I literally saved 2 lives because people on the boards trusted me enough to tell me that they'd overdosed & that they didn't want to tell anyone else because they didn't think anyone else would understand why they did it. I visited one of those girls in the hospital. I don't defend the reasoning at all, but it's what they believed.

What I consider the real ED sites- you'll probably never see them. They're privately hosted and password protected. You have to be invited to them. Those sites don't have any tips or pics- they're just forums for people all going through the same things. We encouraged each other to seek help, and a lot of us did end up going into recovery. No one asked for starving buddies because we all actually had EDs & not one of us would ever wish that on our worst enemy. There isn't a such thing as a REAL "pro-ana" or "pro-ED" site. No one wants that for someone else. If I found my child on an ED website I'd be shattered, primarily because she had to go to strangers for help with a major problem instead of confiding in me.

When I went into recovery 4 years ago I told everyone on the forums. They were unanimously supportive. There were recovery forums on the same sites and I used them for a while. I keep in touch with a few people from the forums. They've remained unanimously supportive of me, through recovery, relapses, & recovery again.

Long story short- ED websites do exist, but the serious ones are hard to find and can be bastions of support. The internet is not how eating disorders happen. Not once in all my time in the hospital for an ED did I hear someone in group therapy say anything close to "I went to a website and decided to ruin my life."

firstsip

I don't understand how anyone can support this (it's out of ignorance).

Hopefully I can help educate you out of your ignorance, then .

It's not a case of supporting the sites in question for me and I suspect a hell of a lot of others.

It's about freedom and lack of government intervention.
About how authoritarianism to my mind causes more problems for more people than it solves with those it's targeting.

Remember 'wikileaks'?
If you googled for 'wikileaks' just after the big controversy, google didn't return the site. Despite that it should have reasonably been the first result. This sort of thing is exactly what "the west" criticises various countries in "the east" for doing. Information is power and people do like to control it.
If you try and find information about what sites some countries censor, you'll find that information is also censored by said countries.
It's only a rather small step from that to censoring people discussing censoring. Then people discussing other anti-establishment ideas and so on.

Uuum, this sounds like paranoia to me, actually.

I don't know what the solution is. I don't support censorship or government control, but I do support thinking through solutions instead of allowing paranoia to stop people from thinking.

"This sounds like paranoia," lol, okay. Pretty sure this poster was pointing out that they ARE thinking. Saying "it's paranoia" to criticize the large measures of control different governments have been executing in the last decade (really, you think it's paranoia when we just dealt with SOPA, PIPA, and now ACTA? Those are all specifically the internet, and not limited to America) sounds like someone doesn't WANT to think or question, not the other way around.

In regards to the topic at hand: I actually just posted something along these lines in this forum...but about MFP. I, too, am against censorship and government control. I'm not for some crazy "ALL OF THESE SITES SHOULD BE BANNED" or prosecution... however, I have a problem when that stuff comes on MFP--a site that specifically has "fitness" in the title. And it does. Frequently. That's not a matter of, "Well don't look then," because it filters through. A person with a weightloss ticker aiming for 75 lbs, with a skeletal avatar, posting in the main forum about something else...? That's a trigger, that's something I wasn't purposely looking for, and that's something that shouldn't be on this site.

I always say, once you have an eating disorder, you always have at. I'm a "recovering anorexic," because I never feel fully recovered; even after three or four years of relatively healthy eating, other hormonal conditions I had put weight on. Well, here I am on MFP trying to lose weight... and the counting calories instantly brought relapses. I've worked on getting over that, found lifting really focuses my "FITNESS" mindset instead of "THIN" mindset, and I've recovered fairly well from the last six months of up and down on here. But that doesn't mean I'm steel against incredible triggers that find their way on this site.

Also, to the person who said EDs are about "showing despair/wanting to die to the outside world," unfortunately that's not always true. MANY, MANY cases of anorexia and bulimia are rooted in issues of control.

EDIT: Also, to the person who said there should be ED sections of personal communities on here... unfortunately, there are a few. I was a member of many, and found that threads like, "POST YOUR GOAL WEIGHT" or "PICS" were frequent threads. Many of the forums would say, "We're just trying to be here for each other; no pressure to recover or to relapse." Well, not urging people to recover was triggering enough for me to have to leave the groups and take a break from MFP.

ImogenReed12

I think pro ana girls should be deleted. I'm struggling with an eating disorder. I've been struggling for 4+ years. I sick of these girls "trying to get anorexia". Like really? I'm trying to get help.. Outpatient anyway.