Celebrate it, claim it's normal, and later we'll somehow institutionalize it. Link. Excerpts:
They call her ''Ana.'' She is a role model to some, a goddess to others - the subject of drawings, prayers and even a creed.
She tells them what to eat and mocks them when they don't lose weight. And yet, while she is a very real presence in the lives of many of her followers, she exists only in their minds.
Ana is short for anorexia, and - to the alarm of experts - many who suffer from the potentially fatal eating disorder are part of an underground movement that promotes self-starvation and, in some cases, has an almost cult-like appeal.
Followers include young women and teens who wear red Ana bracelets and offer one another encouraging words of ''thinspiration'' on Web pages and blogs. . .
The movement has flourished on the Web and eating disorder experts say that, despite attempts to limit Ana's online presence, it has now grown to include followers - many of them young - in many parts of the world. . .
[Experts] point to the ''Ana creed,'' a litany of beliefs about control and starvation, that appears on many Web sites and blogs. At least one site encourages followers to make a vow to Ana and sign it in blood.
People with eating disorders who've been involved in the movement confirm its cult-like feel.
''People pray to Ana to make them skinny,'' says Sara, a 17-year-old in Columbus, Ohio, who was an avid organizer of Ana followers until she recently entered treatment for her eating disorder. She spoke on the condition that her last name not be used. . .
How long until Ana worshippers get official protection under the First Amendment?
