'Thinspo' anxiety: veiled anorexia in social media form
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There’s a growing movement online that is unfortunately causing fairly drastic consequences. It’s called the ‘Thinspo’ movement, short for ‘Thinspiration’, (a portmanteau of ‘thin’ and ‘inspiration’) and it’s taking over social media websites.
‘Thinspo’ is the act of viewing photos of women that are incredibly skinny – often with bones protruding out of their skin – and claiming that the photos are inspiration to get thin and exercise. The problem is that ‘Thinspo’ isn’t health related at all. Rather, it’s veiled anorexia that is unfortunately gaining popularity due to a lack of understanding of the social implications.
‘Thinspo’ and pro-ana
In many ways, ‘Thinspo’ is simply the next evolution of the pro-anorexia groups that caused significant problems during the last few decades. ‘Thinspo’ photos are women in the lowest 5% of body weight, often in the lowest 1%, and are spread through Pinterest, Twitter, and other social media sites.
What is making ‘Thinspo’ such a problem is that ...
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