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Pro-ana - The anorexic underground

Pro-ana - The anorexic underground: Encyclopedia II - Pro-ana - The anorexic underground

In some circles of the pro-ana movement, anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are personified as women named Ana (for anorexia; hence the pro-ana movement) and Bella or Mia (for bulimia). Members use this to illustrate the anorexic's loneliness: "Ana" is the anorexic's only reliable friend whom they can rely on when everything else feels out of control. Pro-ana sites involve anorexics coming together to talk abou ...

Pro-ana: Encyclopedia II - Pro-ana - The anorexic underground

Pro-ana - The anorexic underground

In some circles of the pro-ana movement, anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are personified as women named Ana (for anorexia; hence the pro-ana movement) and Bella or Mia (for bulimia). Members use this to illustrate the anorexic's loneliness: "Ana" is the anorexic's only reliable friend whom they can rely on when everything else feels out of control. Pro-ana sites involve anorexics coming together to talk about their experiences with their shared "best friend".

Many anorexics consider the pro-ana or anorexic "community" to be a type of secret society called the "anorexic underground", whose members are able to identify each other at first glance. This has led to people who identify as pro-ana wearing colour-coded bracelets to signify their disease. The colours for each disorder vary, but they are generally considered to be:

red (less commonly blue): anorexia nervosa
purple: bulimia nervosa
green: binge-eating
black: self-harm or depression
yellow: strength and hope
orange: recovery

The most popular maker of these bracelets is BlueDragonfly. Some anorexics make their own bracelets or buy normal bracelets that happen to be in those colours.

Other related archives

Anti-psychiatry, BMI, DSM-IV, ED-NOS, Internet, LiveJournal, Pro-mia, Scurvy, Smallpox, Yahoo!, anorexia nervosa, binge-eating, bracelets, bulimia nervosa, communities, community, depression, discussion groups, eating disorder, feedback, filesharing, freedom of speech, lifestyle, magazines, media, medical, moral panic, obese, perfection, personified, pornography, psychological, rating communities, secret society, self-harm, support, syrup of ipecac, the Oprah Winfrey Show, trolling, vomiting

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The anorexic underground", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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