pro-ana, the basic premise of which is that an eating disorder is not a disorder but a lifestyle choice, is very much an ideology of the early 21st century, one that could not exist absent the anonymity and accessibility of the Internet, without which the only place large numbers of anorexics and bulimics would find themselves together would be at inpatient treatment. ''Primarily, the sites reinforce the secretiveness and the 'specialness' of the disorder,'' Davis says. ''When young women get into the grips of this disease, their thoughts become very distorted, and part of it is they believe they're unique and special. The sites are a way for them to connect with other girls and to basically talk about how special they are. And they become very isolated. Women with eating disorders really thrive in a lot of ways on being very disconnected. At the same time, of course, they have a yearning to be connected.''

[...]

At its most militant, the ideology is something along the lines of, as the opening page of one site puts it: ''Volitional, proactive anorexia is not a disease or a disorder. . . . There are no victims here. It is a lifestyle that begins and ends with a particular faculty human beings seem in drastically short supply of today: the will. . . . Contrary to popular misconception, anorectics possess the most iron-cored, indomitable wills of all. Our way is not that of the weak. . . . If we ever completely tapped that potential in our midst . . . we could change the world. Completely. Maybe we could even rule it.''

A Secret Society of the Starving: Langer, ziemlich beunruhigender Artikel im New York Times Magazine (Registrierung erforderlich) über pro-Anas, also Leute, die zu ihrer Anorexie stehen, falls sie noch stehen können.

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