Should Pro-Anorexia Websites Be Banned?

Last year, France's lower house passed a bill that would make pro-anorexia (pro-Ana) websites illegal. Valerie Boyer, the center-right parliament member who introduced the bill, said that she does not want the websites' "perverse and morbid" tips, which ultimately lead to death, seen by children. (In France, anorexia occurs predominantly in girls between 12 and 13 and 18 and 19.)

France's health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, backed the law, arguing that giving young women advice on how to starve and torture themselves and avoid parents and doctors does not fall under freedom of expression.

In general, I am wary of any government legislation criminalizing bloggers, and worse, punishing women for discussing illnesses related to body image. However, reading some of the pro-Ana sites (the photos on "thinspiration" sites like this one were particularly disturbing) pushed me into an unlikely point of view: I fully support the measures taken in France.

For the women who create and follow pro-Ana sites, anorexia is not simply a disease, it is a code, an oath they take with one another, a way of life. They set themselves in opposition to anyone who is not part of the Ana community. One blogger, who had just emerged from a recovery program that her concerned friends and family sent her to, wrote about how great it was to be back in the community and encouraged readers to join her in a thirty hour fast. The post's 64 comments weighed in with guilt over having eaten too much or not fasted enough and professed solidarity with the blogger.

If one blogger can be forcibly removed from her life and sent to a clinic, and then return to inspire her followers on a thirty-hour fast, how can we expect people addicted to pro-Ana sites to recover?

While the bill is currently stewing in the French Senate, people have been weighing in on its proposed effects and consequences. Ars technica labels the law "counterproductive" and, incredibly, compares pro-Ana sites to those advertising bacon cheeseburgers, asking if all websites potentially construed as dangerous could in the future be legislated against. Meanwhile, the documentary Arresting Ana stresses that the law punishes women who are looking for salvation in "Ana," the mythical representation of anorexia who to them is a friend, confidante, and kind of "guru." "Arresting Ana" seems to believe that turning these women into criminals will not only leave them  with a jail sentence and a fine, but also take away their reason for living.

The French fashion industry has also voiced its displeasure. Enlightened designer Jean-Paul Gautlier claimed that anorexia is a problem solved not by laws, but by understanding. Well thank you, Jean-Paul. The hollow cheeks and shrunken stomachs of your models are demonstrating an understanding of what, exactly? The direct relationship between fashion and extreme thinness? Ah, right. Guess we don't need laws, then, when we've got your "understanding."

The incredibly destructive nature of these pro-Ana communities -- and the way they encourage girls as young as 12 and 13 to hide their illnesses and to continue starving themselves -- demands action. Not only laws, of course; also society-wide efforts to combat the notion that extreme thinness is desirable and beautiful, and resources and positive support groups for women struggling with body image.

Quite simply, I wonder how possible it is to help anorexic women if they can constantly run from parents, friends, and professional help into the arms of a community that encourages them to never give up, and to never to eat more than 800 calories a day.

Photo: Kilikin@Kia