No Thinspiration

Without their parents’ knowledge, many adolescents with diagnosed eating disorders are visiting Web sites that encourage anorexia and bulimia, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics last month.

“Parents of pro-eating-disorder Web site users were more likely to know about these sites” – which provide “thinspiration” (images of extremely thin women) and reinforce disordered eating habits – than other parents, said Rebecka Peebles, one of the study’s authors and an instructor in adolescent medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “Still, over half the parents of these pro-eating-disorder Web site users didn’t know their own kids were on these sites.”

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