Debate Pro or con

There's a reason that things like anorexia and bulimia are called "eating disorders" - of course they're not healthy. To argue that they are anything but diseases would be the same as saying that being an alcoholic is "just a lifestyle choice."

Yeesh. It's one thing to offer support to people who live with these sorts of problems, to make them feel that they are good people and to boost their esteem - but it's another to do so by glamourising something that can drastically affect their health.

Most modernized cultures, particularly those with the sort of media that America has, set up unrealistic ideals through television and magazines - overly thin women with flawless skin and teeth (often the photos are cleaned up anyway, to hide any possible "imperfection"), men with washboard stomachs and rippling muscles. This sort of pop culture promotes a "norm" that really isn't normal at all, that most people cannot reasonably be expected to achieve, and it all just serves to tip the scale to one extreme or another - encouraging people to either do too much for an unrealistic goal, or to give up and wallow in self-pity because they think that they're not good enough.

This whole pro-ana thing is the same basic concept, only with far more tangible negative results. Choosing to eat a strict diet is a lifestyle choice. Choosing to excercise regularly is a lifestyle choice. Hell, choosing to get your love handles surgically removed is a lifestyle choice! But when it becomes an all-consuming goal that makes you forget about your health, that makes you oblivious to the risks you're taking, you're not capable anymore of making a reasoned, intelligent choice.

A delusion is a belief which is held despite obvious and overwhelming proof to the contrary. That's what pro-ana websites are encouraging, a delusion. It's like saying that the ideal of beauty is to weigh four hundred pounds, and completely ignoring the MEDICAL FACTS that weighing so much is detrimental to your health. No. Everyone deserves to think there is something about them that's beautiful, but to encourage ideals which are blatantly contrary to a person's wellfare... that's just wrong. Eating disorders are like addictions. They're something that you become a slave to. When it gets to the point that people are actively trying to convince the ones who want to get help not to, there's no way you can tell me there's anything beneficial about it.