Eating disorders & the social Web

Hannah (not her real name), a 4th-year student at Hampshire College, recently posted in our BlogSafety.com forum about social-networking sufferers of eating disorders (EDs). She'd been surfing the social sites, concerned about a long-time friend of hers, "Cora," who had "relapsed" (started extreme dieting again). Part of her was hoping she wouldn't find Cora in one of the ED "support" communities. She didn't, but…

"I was looking around on Xanga and came across a bunch of girls who support each other in starving themselves to become thinner," she wrote, referring to "pro-ana" (for anorexia), "pro-mia" (for bulimia) communities on the Web. "One of my friends has been battling with this for years now - since she was the same age as [the girls in Xanga] and has serious health consequences. These girls are in a dangerous situation and are causing serious harm to themselves. Is there any place that could help or anything that someone could do? I don't know who these girls are, but I'm worried about their health."

An estimated .5-1% of adolescent and adult women are anorexic and 1-2% are bulimic, Newsweek reports, and they have been seeking and receiving support on the Web (to both continue and stop EDs' self-destructive behavior) since long before social networking came along. But – as with all types of interest communities - on Web 2.0, the networking and validation-seeking is both more convenient and more exposed. This is both bad and good, respectively. Please click to this week's issue of my newsletter for an explanation - and an interview with Hannah that brings new meaning to the term "online safety."