I had a date.
It was the summer after I graduated from high school and a college guy asked me out.  I was flattered, excited, thrilled!  He wasn’t like my last boyfriend who had verbally and physically abused me for 18 months… he couldn’t be.  (And, truth be told, he never was.)
He asked me to go to dinner.  It was Monday and our chosen night was Friday.  This was all done over the telephone, pre-cell phone and pre-Internet.  It was magical.  (Did I mention I was ecstatic?)
My heart pounded at the thought.  It was going to be amazing! 
But.  Wait.
What-Would-I-Wear?
Ah, the age-old …read more

Okay.  Let’s get our facts straight here.
Princess Beatrice is perhaps one of the least fashion-forward young women in royal circuits.  (Note the butterfly-themed hat she wore to her brother’s wedding – yikes…) 
And she’s a constant club-hopper who hasn’t yet learned how to turn it on for the papparrazzi and give a “good” shot, even if it’s the wee hours of the morning.  (That’s bound to come.) 
But all this doesn’t give the press the right to nag her about her weight.
Recent photos of her romping on the beach in a skimpy bikini aroused the ire of plenty of tabloidites who ridiculed her size 10 …read more

Thinspiration — also known as “thinspo” — is all over the Internet.  Really, if you want to find it, you can do so with a few simple keystrokes. 
As the Breaking the Mirror blogger, I find myself regularly investigating images and videos that could be considered “thinspo” in the name of investigation.  But some nights, like this evening, I’ve had to deliberately stop looking at them even though I’ve found some provocative stories that I’d love to share with readers.
You see, if I’m to be perfectly frank (and I don’t think you’d want it any other way), those thinspo pics still have …read more

I can remember an interesting survey I heard about some time ago… 
A bunch of kids (they were quite young — perhaps 5 and 6) were asked if they would rather be fat or lose a limb (or some such nonsense.)  They predominantly chose losing a limb over having too much weight on their frames.
Now, that’s just horrible. 
First of all, who would ask kids such a question?  And secondly, why equate being “fat” with the horror of losing a limb? 
(Incidentally, I cannot find the original report — if you can, please comment and send the link.  I’m not sure I …read more

It’s come to my attention that some anorexics are using food allergies/sensitivities as an excuse not to eat, especially when around friends or family whom they haven’t seen for a while.
(As a side note, I was concerned about mentioning this, for fear that some pro-anas might use it for their own “benefits”; but let’s face it — if you’re ana, you’ve probably already come up with all the “tricks” you need to continue your starvation tactics.)
In any case, I’m curious — have you ever lied about having problems with food just to avoid eating in social or familial situations? 
I haven’t …read more

I became anorexic in the 1980s.  This means I had no Internet to turn to for my thinspiration, no images immediately accessible with a tap of the keyboard.
But I still had thinspiration.  It just came in the form of books and articles.
I’ve always loved to read and when I discovered there were fiction and non-fiction accounts of girls striving to be thin JUST LIKE I WAS, I greedily gobbled them up (instead of gobbling up food.) 
I learned a great deal from these thinspo devices… and what I came away with was not what the authors intended, I assure you.  In …read more

If you know someone who is suffering from a case of anorexia, you might inadvertently trigger her deeper into her disease by saying something that she interprets much differently than you might expect. 
It’s kind of like there’s an “Ana Filter” between an anorexic’s eyes, ears and brain.  Everything she sees and hears becomes skewed toward holding onto the disorder.
From my own experiences, I’d like to share with you what the anorexic “hears” when you make innocuous (or seemingly thoughtful) comments:
WHAT YOU SAY:  “You look so thin!”
WHAT THE ANOREXIC HEARS:  “You are beautiful and I’m jealous!”
WHAT YOU SAY:  “I’m glad to …read more

I’m alarmed when I read that girls are developing eating disorders as young as five or six… that seems such a stretch.  I was the typical “teen anorexic” — exactly what you’d expect, really.
I’m curious — when did you start your relationship with Ana (or Mia)? 

First of all, thinspiration (or thinspo) is used by pro-ana and pro-mia advocates around the world and provides vision cues to them to stop eating.  Pictures of rail-thin women and guys are plastered around the web, ostensibly to give willpower to anorexics and bulimics.
Of course, all pro-recovery sites like Breaking the Mirror talk about the dangers of thinspo.  That’s nothing new.
But could thinspiration be truly useful in some situations?  I mean, people without eating disorders tend to use “thinspiration”, too. 
For instance, a gal who wants to return to her pre-pregnancy weight may put pics of her years ”before kids” around the house as …read more

If you’re not from the “world” of eating disorders, you might think that all disordered eaters treat one another the same.
Not so.
You see, like any other “clique”, those with EDs have a caste system, a heirarchy of sorts.  It’s not usually discussed, but it definitely exists. 
Allow me to explain (and feel free to let me know if any of this has changed recently or if I’m missing something)…