by Amy Finn

“You’ve made a decision. You won’t stop. The pain is necessary, especially the pain of hunger. It reassures you that you are STRONG, can withstand anything. That you are NOT a slave to your body that you don’t have to give into its whining.”

“I don’t see people anymore. All I see are bodies. Collarbones, hip bones, rib cages. If their thighs touch, if their stomachs are flat.”

“Light as a feather floating in air, I want to be perfect, barely there.”

“Instantly there’s a voice telling me: you’re not skinny enough.”

“Because the pain of looking in the mirror hurts more than starving”

“Feet together, thighs apart.”

“I’m tired and cold all the time.”

The definition of Thinspiration; the photos or other materials intended to provide inspiration for anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa as a lifestyle choice. Every quote above was from one thinspo/pro-ana/pro-mia site or the other; in fact all I had to search was ‘thinspirations’ and I was provided with many pictures and quotes.

All of them telling that person that he or she isn’t good enough. The pro-ana pro-mia sites, which are sites that promote anorexia and bulimia, providing them with ‘helpful’ tips, tricks, inspiration, and even a ‘buddy’ that can be used to motivate them.

“Everyday during lunch I would just go through thinspiration after thinspiration to give me the willpower to not eat.” the anonymous source told of her journey through her eating disorder.

One of those fateful people that fall victim to those sites, comes home and looks at their disappearing reflection; the fat that, the majority of the time, only they see on their bones. The apple they ate, feeling heavy, weighing them down.

‘I can’t believe I ate more than 200 calories today. I should have eaten less, I should have purged more.’ The excess calories that were eaten are already adding inches of imaginary fat to their body that need to be worked off immediately. Soon they (people with an eating disorder) will lose count of the number of crunches, sit-ups, and other exercises they do; just wanting, no needing, the extra calories melted off and the voice in their head to finally be happy.

After they work out as much as they possibly can, they turn to their computer. The pro-ana and pro-mia website they just pulled up is telling them that they should’ve stayed strong; they should’ve kept the end goal in your mind. The thinspiration photos and quotes are making it worse. They just want it to end; want this gross fat to just finally come off. Why is it so hard, so many other people do it, just yesterday they were so strong! Why couldn’t they just live with the hunger? How could they ruin EVERYTHING! The voices in their head screaming for them to be better.

“For days, I wouldn’t eat, I would survive on just a granola bar.” an anonymous source said, “The feeling I would get when I would see the pounds melting away is something I can’t explain. I would feel this euphoric sensation; I had finally done it, but then the bad feeling would settle in. The weight that I would lose was never enough; if I had lost five pounds, I needed to lose 10, if I lost 10 I needed to lose 20.”

This process they can’t escape just keeps going. They starve, they binge, they purge; and then it repeats.

The voice never stopping and darkness just keeps going.

“No matter what anyone said, to me, I was never good enough. I was always too fat or too ugly; never living up to this perfect image that I had wanted. Though I’m recovering, the urges are still there; they never stop.” the anonymous source shared.

They might end up being fine, or they might be one of the 150,000 that go too far and die every year.

People need to realize that eating disorders are not a walk in the park and cannot be stopped unless the person affected by it wants help. No one can make a person better unless that one person wants to be helped.

As the internet and social media is becoming increasingly popular, so is thinspiration. In fact, many websites are taking a stand against thispiration pictures and posts because these images are harmful. They affect body images for the worse, as well as make it harder for people to recover.