- pro-ana
- adj.Promoting or encouraging excessive thinness, extreme weight loss, or anorexia. Also: pro ana, proana.Example Citations:The group dieting that is relatively ad hoc among friends and sorority sisters takes a more organized form on the Internet, where spring break has become a popular topic on Web sites and message boards maintained by devotees of a controversial underground movement known as "pro-ana," or pro-anorexia, who sometimes identify themselves in public by wearing red bracelets. There are hundreds of pro-ana Web sites promoting and supporting the "anorexic lifestyle," despite aggressive efforts to shut them down by eating-disorder activists.— Alex Williams, "Before Spring Break, the Anorexic Challenge," The New York Times, April 2, 2006Pick up any gossip magazine, and you'll find a pic-filled spread. "Stars: Are They Too Thin?" they ask as every pound of weight-gain is breathlessly heralded as "a return to curves." These pictures usually make their way onto pro-ana (that's anorexia-promoting) Web sites, where they're tagged as "thinspirations."— Mark Ellwood, "Is thin in?," New York Daily News, March 9, 2006Earliest Citation:Health experts are calling for a ban on "sick" websites that use skinny stars such as Posh Spice and Kate Moss to promote anorexia as an acceptable "lifestyle" choice.The so-called Pro-Ana sites offer tips on achieving "beautifully emaciated bodies".— "Anorexia web fear," Scottish Daily Record, February 14, 2001Notes:A similar adjective is pro-mia, which describes people or websites that promote or encourage bulimia.Related Words: Categories:The two major definitions of ProAna are based on the two most common populations who embrace the term as an identifying descriptor:1. Individuals suffering from Anorexia Nervosa (AN) or other restrictive eating disorders (ED's): Commonly, this approach to living with an ED stems from barriers to treatment and a subsequent desire to reach out and connect with kindred sufferers for support. They may or may not be recovery-oriented. Genuine ED sufferers who identify as ProAna embrace the term as PROACTIVE IN ANOREXIA - making the most of their Lives despite their disorder. This group includes those for whom treatment is inadequate, inaccessible or unwanted.2. Individuals who covet pathology; who emulate anorexic behaviors and WANT to cultivate and celebrate ED's within themselves (aka "wanarexics"). These individuals have taken an historical empowerment motto and twisted it's intended meaning to a literal interpretation (i.e., a disavowal of victim mentality as an empowerment strategy -- they actually believe that "Anorexia is a Lifestyle, Not A Disease." These are individuals who do NOT have ED's but wish they did; those who strive to attain the extremely thin physique exhibited in long-term anorexics; who emulate the eating-disordered practices which manifest in AN patients.The former are seeking a new approach to living with these insidious illnesses; reaching out when current treatment modalities have failed to help. The articulation of the "Ana Creed" and "Ana Psalm"; "Thin Commandments" and "Letters from Ana or Mia" were intended as CREATIVE ALLITERATIONS; explorations of the ED psyche - they were NEVER meant to be taken literally! This is a critical issue. Wanarexics have embraced these creative works as literal tenets for "how to become anorexic."The latter are resented by genuine sufferers who know all-too-well that ED's are not glamorous or cool or chic in any way.Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_pro_Ana_mean\#ixzz1unuRyiiy
New words. 2013.
