Absolutely. I don't think people realize there are whole communities formed by girls encouraging each others' eating disorders. IIRC there were a few on reddit, IDK if they ever got shut down.
It's not new. During the height of my eating disorder, I followed a ton of pro- anorexia pages/people on Xanga. This was probably 2003ish and girls would give tips to hide their disorders and how to lose more weight.
Those communities are exactly how my friend ended up with an ED when we were younger. His ex gf basically used those to push him into it. I'll never forgive her for what she did to him, ever. It's so fucked up man
idk about genuine (like inarguable and blatant) pro ana content on reddit, but there are definitely support communities that could do with a bit heavier moderation because some of the content definitely starts to lean into it
The movement is alive and well on TikTok. And it seems like very little can be done about it since a lot of it is images or short videos with no dialogue that are IYKYK based. Which gets a discussion started in the comments.
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u/beepborpimajorp 4d ago
Absolutely. I don't think people realize there are whole communities formed by girls encouraging each others' eating disorders. IIRC there were a few on reddit, IDK if they ever got shut down.
It's really sad.