The profiles that promote anorexia and bulimia are increasing on social networks. As a meeting place, the users exchange tips to lose weight, tricks to eat less and less and tips to follow eating habits that can lead to death. The danger of these portals is very great and legally there is very little that can be done to stop this apology for eating disorders.
Eating disorders on the web
Official and private organizations that oversee the health of adolescents such as ADANER or Protégeles.com warn of the danger of certain websites and social profiles that promote eating habits that are totally harmful to health. These profiles are the meeting point for young people who strive to achieve what they consider physical perfection, that is, the most extreme thinness. The close bond created by feeling misunderstood by the family and finding a circle of people who can help them achieve their goals is one reason why these people avoid acknowledging their illness.
90% of the users of these profiles on social networks are girls between the ages of 13 and 18 and the pressure to protect our adolescents does not cease, repeatedly calling for the closure of these profiles on Twitter. However, in the absence of clear legislation on Internet crimes, social networks appeal to freedom of expression to maintain open accounts from which diseases such as anorexia and bulimia are promoted.
The current aesthetic model
Those who think that people who fall into this type of disease are weak people with little personality are very wrong. On the contrary, they are young perfectionists, intelligent, with a great sense of duty and very disciplined, which is what is needed to carry out the long fasts and the dangerous diets that each one of them follows. What they want is to reach the aesthetic ideal and what we ask ourselves is, are these girls looking for extreme thinness in the wrong way to reach the ideal of beauty, or is sickly thinness really the canon that the world of fashion proposes to us?
Obviously they are wrong, because the destruction of their own body can never lead them to that perfection that they seek so much, but the image of what a stylish and successful woman that comes to us from the world of fashion does not help either. Extremely thin models in which not even a hint of body curve can be seen continue to promote the best brands despite criticism.
From Victoria’s Secret it was said that it would not accept a model such as Κate Upton for being too voluptuous. Model against which certain pro-anorexia websites were recently launched, calling her vulgar and fat. For her part, the spectacular model from Michigan continues to reap successes, oblivious to criticism from sectors that promote extreme thinness and affirms that she is not willing to put her health at risk. And meanwhile she continues making covers.
It would therefore be necessary to review the current aesthetic ideal and encourage a change of mentality in the youngest. And since the legislation does not go faster, it would have to be the society itself responsible for marking another stereotype of a beautiful woman that is healthier than the current one. In this sense, the greats of fashion would also have a lot to contribute.