Starving. New Trend I Missed?

Sadly, no, this has been going on for years. There is a lot of stuff out there even more disturbing than most of what we get here, a whole 'pro-anorexia' movement of (mostly) girls and young women who either have an eating disorder and pretend it's a lifestyle choice or who glamorize extreme weight loss and actually want to GET an eating disorder to look that thin.

What's new is those questions reaching us in the V&V section of Y!A. It's probably a factor that many pro-ana blogs and sites get shut down by their hosting service when discovered. That is a good thing, but the damage is already done, so these girls look for new places to discuss their starvation diets.

Some of these girls even actively seek out mainstream sites to shock people with how little they eat: when you see anorexia nervosa as some kind of lifestyle that requires a lot of willpower, the shocked reactions seem like an endorsement of how very dedicated you are.

You say how very concerning it is when a post reads "I had 8 grapes for lunch", and it is. But the girl in the grips of her eating disorder thinks: "See, people are amazed at me, they admire me, eating 8 grapes for lunch is so little, only a STRONG person has that kind of restraint!"

It's a very dangerous trend, and I am afraid it's not going away any time soon.

I hear what you are saying! I have answered many questions where young people are dieting and eating less that is necessary to keep them healthy. Sociologists would say that the reason for this is media pressure to be unattainably thin. If all we see through various media is very thin people, we start believing that this is the "norm" and if we don't look like those images, we will be left out of life.

It is sad, but not a new phenomenon.. have you heard of Twiggy... she was a really skinny model in the 60's... she reminds me of those sickly looking women they use for some clothing and cologne ads. Take a look at the links below.

Unfortunately, though it's not new, it does seem to be cropping up more. All these kids with their eating disorders that think being anorexic or bulimic somehow is cool. I don't have children of my own, but did have a friend in the 1980's with both anorexia and then bulimia. If these kids could see what would happen to them by the time they're 25 it would open their eyes. You can't see your body anymore if you've gone blind.

Anyway, it does tick me off that parents don't notice, nobody notices but the adults here who are anonymous and can't help.

I think what you're talking about is that thing that a lot of young females do.

I read an article about it years ago,

it's almost like a competition among a closed minded group of "friends" who are all in an unspoken competition with each other of who can eat the least amount without dying.

They seem to believe that starving will help them to lose weight for some reason.

The mind of stupid young females is very confusing and I don't understand their reasoning in a lot of these things.

Have you ever heard of pinterest? It's a website where you post links as pictures. Anyways, there's a fitness section on it, and about 80% of those pictures are supposed to motivate you to exercise and lose weight. Just looking at that makes me want to starve myself...and I know that's not healthy.

There's a lot of media attention on how obesity is a growing epidemic in our country, and it's affecting a lot of teens (male and female). You also see all those skinny girls on the CW and a lot of teen shows. They're all skinnier than normal, and I don't mean *normal in our fat country* I mean what's considered a healthy, normal weight. It's always been the case, but I was flipping (*cough* my screenname *cough*) and noticed that there's a lot more skin and sex scenes now than there was 10 years ago (seriously, in my day, Buffy had sex, her boyfriend tried to kill her. Now, there's teen mom on MTV...I think...I don't have cable...and Gossip Girl etc)

ANYWAYS, there's just more pressure to be thin now. And with the internet, people can post their neurosis anonymously and not worry about being judged by those they care about. Plus, there's a lot of thinspo resources online (I've accidentally stumbled upon them, and they all have tips on how to hide it from your family etc...so it's actually easier now to have an ED than it was before), despite tumblr cracking down on that.

Yeah, I saw one that included a list of foods eaten that day and one itemised thing was "1 romaine lettuce leaf" !

It's not new. A certain percentage of people obsess about calories (OCD). The problem is that the Yahoo language filter picks up on certain words and suggests the V&V category, and these dim witted posters don't notice and just blindly click on the Submit button. Words I've noticed it with are "meat" (go figure!), "protein" (hence all the protein powder/body building questions), "diet", "healthy", "did I eat to (sic - why won't they say "too"?) much today?". All better posted in Diet & Fitness.

I've also noticed an increase - most are from the US, and teenage girls start stressing about their bodies at the end of winter in preparation for wearing shorts and swimsuits.

I will answer in the context of the section Vegetarian and Vegan.

It is the mistaken notion that vegetarian means thinness or health as promoted by vegetarian groups and even some people here. The idea is if I eat nothing but plants, even if it actually is not even enough to feed a baby rabbit, it's healthy. But ask yourself, where did they get that idea? Surely not from the "eat bacon" or "I like steak" crowd?

It's not a trend.

I'm 16. Im a male and weigh 144. 6 foot 1.

I downloaded this app called calorie counter to see what my "diet" ( just food, not necessarily to lose weight) should look like.

I only can eat 1400 calories a day or less. I run 5 miles a day.

I can't eat any more. I don't feel hungry. Am I starving myself? Probably. Do I mean to? No.

It's not a trend people call it a "diet" many people have anorexia and it is not a trend it is a mental disorder

FYI everyone, Blairdon a middle-aged child molester!!!