Anorexia is one of the most severe forms of self-denial and self-hatred, and it can be a downward spiral that often leads to death. Websites that encourage this condition are criminal, and should be outlawed, just like child pornography. It's insane that we allow our youngsters to encourage and pursue a behaviour that is tantamount to self-mutilation. Even though obesity has become endemic, this is not a reason to glorify extreme thinness. To inflict damage to the self is not illegal as such. But to witness someone doing it while promoting others to do the same, without intervening, is definitely unethical. We cannot look at these websites without asking ourselves, how do they get away with it?

Self-mutilation is sometimes practiced by teenagers and young adults who have misplaced anger and pain that they attempt to work out in destructive ways. Instead of dealing with emotional pain, some people would rather bring themselves physical pain, which actually serves as a relief from stress. Unfortunately, this sense of relief is short-lived, and the desire to be self-destructive quickly returns. With anorexia, this is quite evident, as the compulsion to lose weight soon gets out of control. The anorexic implements increasingly drastic measures to maintain a squeletal frame, such as only eating a ridiculous amount of calories, and ingesting large quantities of laxatives. The anorexic is perpetually hungry and obsessed with food, but won't give in to the desire to eat. It's the ultimate method of sel-punishment, and gives the sufferer a distorted sense of control, even though she (or he) is totally in the grips of the disease. At the root of this disorder, there is rage and powerlessness, and a feeling of deep sadness and loneliness.

This is the letter of protest that my daughter wrote, and I am reproducing it with her permission:

Dear Sir/Madame,
I am writing to you for I am concerned about the lack of action taken against pro anorexic websites. Pro anorexia websites are websites that promote eating disorders. There are two genres of theses websites: "thinspiration" and "tips and tricks". Thinspiration websites include photos of super skinny models, and tips and tricks websites include instructions of how to be anorexic. Both types of websites destroy teenagers and young women's self esteem by making them feel bad about their body image. These websites support dangerous acts of anorexia and bulimia as a normal lifestyle rather then a deadly disease.

These websites encourage teenagers and young women to pursue an eating disorder by making it look glamorous. They relate food with disgusting things and try and create an image that without being anorexic you are overweight. They suggest that starving models are beautiful. Harmful images and texts brainwash people that log into these websites. Although some might have a warning they are depressing and harming to users.

There are many ways to access theses horrible sites. Certain networking communities such as MySpace and Facebook feature blogs supporting anorexia and bulimia. Pages that pop up after a search using a search engine can be relevant. Some of the pages state requests such as "No people trying to recover - it ruins our motivation" and "No people who are against pro anorexia - we can do what we want". The people who access pages like these are living in denial because they are listening to whatever the dangerous websites are telling them.

In November 2006, Model Ana Carolina Reston died in Brazil at the age of twenty-one, weighing in at less than forty kilograms at a tall height of one point seven meters. In August that same year Uruguay model Luisel Ramos died of heart failure. These events influenced the French who decided to impose a €30,000 ($52,029) fine and a two year prison sentence to any offender who "provokes a person to seek excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged restriction of nourishment". If the outcome of promoting this results in death the fine can rise to €45,000 ($78,043). The French are taking action so why aren't we?

Please take what I am saying into consideration. It is important that we keep the lives of our teenage girls and young women safe. Please rise awareness against these web sites, as anorexia is not a normal lifestyle but a disease that people die from. Therefore it is not right that the female citizens of Australia are being told otherwise. Stop pro anorexia websites in Australia.

Stop pro anorexia websites throughout the world.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Isabell_Kratz

Eight Parenting-Tips for Teen-Eating-Disorders

First of the Parenting-Tips

Teen-eating-disorders can be very scary for parents. It is imperative that you make sure your teen is medically and psychiatrically stable. If you know, your child is not in danger; hopefully your anxiety will be relieved enough so that you can help in a way that is best for your adolescent.

Second of the Parenting-Tips

Teen-eating-disorders cause parents to suffer with their own feeling of anxiety, frustration, anger, and sadness. Usually parents nag kids about eating because of their own discomfort. Parents who focus on teen eating contribute the teens to acting out more with food.

Third of the Parenting-Tips

Teen-eating-disorders can cause the other children in the family to feel neglected. If the teen with the eating disorder gets most of the attention, it sends negative messages to all the kids in the family. Kids may learn being sick gets attention.

Fourth of the Parenting-Tips

Teen-eating-disorders allow adolescents to feel in control and are a way they are sending a message that they want to make their own choices. As long as your child is medically stable, be respectful of his or her choices about food. If you get into a power struggle, you will lose and end up worse for it

Fifth of the Parenting Tips

Teen-eating-disorders often occur to adolescents who are hard on themselves and are perfectionist in nature. It is vital not to compare him or her to siblings or friends because they will often believe they are not good enough. Praise for accomplishments is very beneficial to these teens with self-esteem issues. Stay away from questioning weight, diets, or food intake in general. Avoid putting pressure on your child.

Sixth of the Parenting-Tips

Teen-eating disorders are complicated problems, which can take a long time resolve. Families have to be patient in the face of their concern. The adolescent may not get better for months and sometimes years of treatment and anxiety and frustration. Be patient, caring, and supportive.

Seventh of the Parenting-Tips

Teen-eating-disorders can trigger old emotions especially if you have had your own issues with weight or eating disorders. It is important to separate your childs emotional concerns from your own. It is crucial that you are clear about your own issues so you can separate them from your childs. It can help you to understand your child as his or her own person.

Eighth of the Parenting-Tips

Teen eating disorders can often have psychiatric diagnoses that go alongside this already difficult problem. Depression, anxiety, and/or substance abuse are possibilities. It is important that you become aware if your teen is in danger. This most commonly can be suicidal thoughts or heavy substance abuse. Professional help is necessary if your teen expresses depressed or suicidal feelings.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Karen_Chambre

Compulsively eating her way to obesity, Liz carves precise slices with a razor on the inside of her forearm to relieve pressure and gain a sense of control. Martin stopped binge drinking over two years ago but can't bring himself to eat a meal in front of others. And Mary, who is 25kg lighter than last year and counts out the number of almonds she eats each day, tells me that now having lost all curves to denote a feminine body, she feels safer and sexless. These stories, and many more shared with me by clients got me thinking about food. More specifically, how we form our thoughts about food and it's relationship to nourishing our bodies.

The source of our thinking about food goes back to the early philosophers. Famous philosophers in the Western tradition were definitely talking about food, but the way it was dealt with was to basically marginalize its importance. Food and matters of the body were considered mundane.
Plato, one of the founding philosophers of Western thought, complains that neither "truth" nor "thought of any kind ever comes from the body". The body is a distraction, keeping us "busy in a thousand ways" because of its need for food.

In contrast, ancient Asian philosophers attached importance to food and advanced ideas of health based on healthy eating. Confucius described food as one the three basic conditions, along with an army and trust, for founding a state. Nei Jing, the book that lays out the theory of traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) established the philosophical belief that medicine and food were identical.

Fast-forward to modern society and food is one of the biggest problems of the current world that is intimately tied up with us. Our naïve everyday understanding of food and its relationship to the body must be replaced with a comprehension of its complexity. Food has become so over laden with meaning, or divorced from meaning altogether that we've lost touch with the simple act of eating. The body has become an alien entity, a thing to be controlled and maintained. To fix it, there is an endless list of the next best "how to" books on food, dieting, making love, making friends, finding happiness, and sleeping. We impose rigid practices on ourselves, pounding our flesh into submission under the guise of fitness or starving the body as a way to feel a sense of control, or to at least to be good at something.

Liz, Martin, and Mary were at a point where they could no longer treat their bodies like countries that needed to be subdued. They knew from painful experience, that you can only push against yourself so much and that no matter how strongly you want to master your body, eventually, you come up against your own limitations. It was time for them to let go and begin a peaceful relationship with food.

Sometimes it takes an obsession for us to realize that we've lost our way. In modern society it's hard to know anymore what true satisfaction looks like or what it might feel like. For Liz, Martin, and Mary it became essential then to recover the inherent joy in the everyday, not by deprivation but by celebration. They had to learn how to listen to their body's innate and mysterious inner wisdom and begin a process of learning how to feed themselves with no leftovers of guilt or shame.

For them, as for all of us, it is a global necessity that we re-establish an ethical relationship with food and put ourselves back in harmony with the natural landscape, plants and animals. A shift can occur when we realize we are not disembodied minds unfortunately connected to a physical body and we begin to take pleasure in simply being alive and reaching out from that aliveness to encounter the world. It means we care for good taste, not necessarily related to aesthetic pleasure and refinement, but to beautifully presented, healthy foods and the pleasure of sharing it with others. When we think about food in modern society, we can envision a new philosophical appreciation for the aesthetics of nature, the protection of natural resources, and a higher quality of life for all people.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sandra_Kimball