My Friend Ana or Let’s EAT, Girls!!!!

This is some seriously scary shit…

On one side of the world, we have hunger riots. On the other, a new law that should protect people from self-opposed starvation. The bill that still faces a vote in the French Senate would take aim at any means of mass communication – magazines, blogs, Web sites – that promote eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia with punishments of up to three years in prison and €45,000 fines. More than 30,000 people in France (9 out of 10 are women) suffer from anorexia. To find out more, I google-ed “my friend ana”, the nickname for anorexia I just found in an article. And what I found horrified me: there are real fan websites devoted to anorexia. There are forums, tips about “ana” in art, movies and literature, diet tips, fasts & competitions. These young women admire this life endangering disorder as if it were a cult or a religion. I was never aware of the devastating dimensions of this “trend”.

I found two quotes which illustrate the state of mind:

“We turn skeletons into goddesses, and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.”

„Hunger is power. “

I am really angry that my name is associated with so much stupidity and pain.

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One Response to “My Friend Ana or Let’s EAT, Girls!!!!”

  1. Oliver says:

    I assume that its the thing that over time creates a lot of creativity: the negative association with words. i wonder what amount of things in each culture is labeled ‘tabu’ just because it would associate with something that is shunned by the society? Just think about the issue with blue clothes in Austria during Haider’s high times. Copyrights are doing the rest.

    I am happy on the one side that we are striving therefore to do things always different, but with D.Telekom patenting the color Magenta and Adidas clothes with stripes, I wonder what we will feel free to use in a total information society where anyone who has bad intend could use, to cause collateral damage, a company’s logo as a symbol for his outkast doings? Such as neo-nazis used “Lonsdale” shirts under jackets to show “NSDA” (-P) off to the public.

    I guess sooner or later we have to get rid of these associations, otherwise we limit our language more and more.

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