Spring Break

I remember anorexia being a big topic in highschool, but it really isn't something that I have heard a lot of recently. Maybe that is because of my age and demograpic, although from what I understand female law students and especially female lawyers in big firms, may be an "at risk" group. At any rate, there was an article in the NYT about it, springbreak, and blogs.

There is brief mention that blogs suporting anorexic behavior and other eating disorders by instituting "lowest caloric intake" games may be helpful as a support network for girls who have nowhere else to turn, which is pretty much like saying that a bar may provide a valuable support network for alcoholics who have nowhere else to drink.

Before Spring Break, the Anorexic Challenge

By ALEX WILLIAMS

I REALLY gotta start losing weight before spring break," a 15-year-old from Long Island wrote in her blog on Xanga.com, a social networking site. "Basically today I went 24 hours without food and then I ate green beans and a little baked ziti. Frankly I'm proud of myself, not to mention the 100 situps on the yoga ball and the 100 I'll do before sleep ... Yey for me."

. . .

Not all those discussing weight loss on the site fit the criteria of anorexics or identify themselves with the ana underground. Xanga is one of many meeting places on the Web for weight-related discussion rings. John Hiler, its chief executive, said in an e-mail message: "We have zero desire to host any 'pro-ana' groups. If users report them to us, we delete them from our system."

Still, some therapists suggest that pro-ana Web pages can have some value, serving as support groups for young anorexics, who feel they have no place else to turn.

. . .

"Every year spring break seems to get bigger and bigger," Dr. Maine said, adding that body-image pressure also rises. She said the expectation that you have to "party like a rock star and be over the top" also "includes looking like a rock star," that is, fashionably, even dangerously, skinny.

It's also an opportunity to show a little skin, and parade in front of the opposite sex.

"It's showoff time," said Eileen Adams, a psychologist and treatment specialist at Remuda Ranch, a Bible-based eating disorder center in Wickenburg, Ariz. "That puts a lot of pressure on young people."

And most young women are already feeling pressure, at least when it comes to body-image anxieties. Eating disorder associations say that about 86 percent of the approximately 10 million American girls and women — and one million boys and men — who suffer from an eating disorder reported the onset of their condition by 20.

The pressure has only become worse over the years, therapists said, as spring break has become more sexualized at beaches like South Padre Island, Tex., or Cancun or on MTV. String bikini and wet T-shirt contests make a simple weeklong break from teachers and exams look more like a Mardi Gras for the 18-to-21 set.

available at

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/fashion/sundaystyles/02BREAK.html?_r=1&oref=slogin