Psychiatrists Want To Regulate "Pro-Ana/Pro-Mia" Websites
Pro-ana means pro-anorexia and pro-mia is pro-bulimia and, yes, there are websites promoting the eating disorders, lots of them. I’ve seen them before (I won’t link to them for you all) and they frighten me. The images of teen girls who’ve rendered themselves bone thin are simply disgusting. Apparently, the sites have a big following among some girls with eating disorders.
Now, the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK wants the British government to step in and:
“* Expand its definition of harmful web content to include pro-eating disorder websites.
“* Extend its plans to moderate internet sites that promote harmful behaviour to include pro-eating disorder websites.
“* Specifically address pro-eating disorder websites in its plans to raise awareness of e-safety among parents and teachers.”
I’m not quite sure of how this would all work under British law and I’ve got no idea what teen Internet culture is like in the UK. If it’s anything like the US, then it’s probably pretty free-wheeling, which makes me wonder where the hell these teens’ parents are.
In the US, it’d likely be impossible for the government to regulate such sites, again putting the onus on teens’ parents to regulate things themselves. I know parents have got a lot to contend with these days raising a kid in the Internet age, but just as with other content they don’t want their kids to see, they’ve got to be the ones in charge or you’d get a slippery health website regulation slippery slope very quickly because there are likely all manner of websites that doctors don’t approve of and which they could argue are damaging somehow.
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