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Tag: thinspo

  • “Bikini Bridge” Hoax And What We Can Learn From It

    By now you may have heard about the newest thinspo craze known as the “Bikini Bridge”. Now we’re learning that it’s really a hoax.

    …Or is it?

    It’s been pointed out that the photos featured online and in the media were very real. If you think about it, those type of poses are very familiar as ads are always featuring similarly thin and scantily clad models.

    What also can’t be called a hoax is the message behind many of the images. The idea that if you don’t look a certain way as a woman, you have little value as a human being is sadly nothing new. It is something that women have been dealing with for a long long time, and it has only gotten worse in recent decades.

    Also not surprising is how many men with wives, girlfriends, and young daughters are commenting on posts about the trend to declare that they don’t see the harm or “big deal”. Objectification of women has long been prioritized over the actual emotional harm it causes to women and girls, and it seems some people are determined to remain ignorant. However that doesn’t have to be you, especially as a “target”.

    Just because this particular trend was traced back to 4chan does not mean that the next ludicrous body fixation won’t originate elsewhere, and with someone looking to actually profit from the impressionable and insecure young women of the world.

    (image)

    So what really can be learned from the “Bikini Bridge” images and every other thinspo craze? Nothing good ever comes from letting unqualified strangers on the internet dictate your life choices and self-worth.

    If you are determined to lose weight, it needs to be for your own reasons, not to fit any one else’s standards. If you are looking for guidance in order to lose a certain amount of weight, don’t look to “thinspo blogs”. Talk to your doctor and possibly see if you can be referred to a nutritionist or dietician. Consider getting a personal trainer. The bottom line is the people you want to be telling you about your body and the best way to care for it need to be the people with the education, qualifications and experience to back up their words.

    At the end of the day, the internet is filled with harmful opinions and cruel individuals. It’s up to you to sort through it all in a sane and self-assured manner and separate what is useful from what is fodder.

    Image via TomoNews US

  • Pinterest Users Combat Thinspo With Anti-Thinspo Pins

    To be completely honest and upfront about my feeling on “thinspo” (Thin+ inspirational), I actually have mixed feelings. On one hand, I feel like social media users should be able to share pictures, motivational images, etc. that promotes a lifestyle choice that they have made – to stay thin. Even if some people disagree with the message or think it’s harmful to the minds of impressionable people, I’m not sure that it’s their job to police it. Plus, you don’t see a huge controversy over content that promotes over-eating or over-consumption of alcohol, two activities that also could be deemed unhealthy.

    On the other hand, however, I understand how images of skinny girls and motivational phrases like “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” can be dangerous if you put them in the “thinspo” context. Eating disorders are a serious problem, and you can’t really argue that content like this can exacerbate the situation.

    Having said all of that, it’s been interesting to watch the commentary roll in from users of Tumblr and Pinterest, two social sites that banned this type of content outright. Tumblr did it first, and Pinterest soon followed suit. Pinterest‘s terms of service were amended to prohibit “pins that explicitly encourage self-harm of self-abuse,” and direct mention was made of the “thinspo” content.

    Well, that ban didn’t really work. Pinterest told me that “Pinterest relies on its community to help identify and flag offensive content,” and “once offensive content has been reported, Pinterest reviews it on a case-by-case basis and immediately removes any pin that violates the Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy or Pin Etiquette.”

    So basically, it’s up to the users to flag content that violates the rules and Pinterest scraps it as they see fit. Fair enough – that’s the policy of many social networking sites. But soon after Pinterest announced the ban, a search for the “thinspo” tag revealed hundreds of pins. And today, a few weeks later, that search still returns images of impossibly thin girls and motivational edicts from those that have “completed the journey,” complete with before and after pics. Once again, my mixed mind about this rears its head. From someone who’s done the whole weight loss thing, congratulations – but oftentimes the message isn’t simply about healthy weight loss.

    Anyway, it appears that some Pinterest users are combating the thinspo content by hijacking the tag. A search for thinspo now nets plenty of anti-thinspo content as well. We’re talking pictures of more full-figured women, images with anti-thinspo messages, and more. One particular image is everywhere –

    anti thinspo thinspo pins

    If you can’t read that, it says, “There’s a 0.02% chance she’ll be a teacher. There’s an 81% chance she’ll have dieted by age 10 because she’s afraid of being fat.”

    Other anti-thinspo content?

    and…

    A recent study looked at how Facebook was affect body image. They determined that Facebook might be fueling the fire when it comes to eating disorders. Just over half of those surveyed said that seeing photos of their friends and comparing them to their own photos made them conscious about their body and weight.

    There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be thin and healthy. There’s also nothing wrong with not being a size 0. Eating disorders are bad. These are all things that most people can agree on. For Pinterest users, there’s a debate happening about whether “thinspiration” is actually inspirational, or dangerous.

    What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

    [h/t Business Insider]

    [Lead Image Courtesy]

  • Despite Ban, Pinterest Still Full Of “Self-Harming” Thinspo Content [UPDATED]

    There’s a lot of stuff on the internet. This might sound obvious, and it is – but just think about how many different ideas are expressed throughout all the little nooks and crannies of the interwebs. It’s inevitable that some stuff out there is going to piss some people off.

    Some of the most recent types of content causing a stir are “pro-ana,” “pro-mia,” and “thinspo” blogs that promote people (admittedly, mostly girls) to stay thin – dangerously thin in the eyes of some. “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” is the type of advice you might find tagged “thinspo” (short for thinspiration) somewhere online. Plus, you’ll also find images of thin (mostly) women, as they serve as a visual motivator for girls who want to become or stay skinny.

    There are mixed feelings about this sort of thing, as would be expected. Should sites police this type of content? Is it just free speech, like minded people discussing a life choice? Or is is promotion and glorification of harmful activities?

    Earlier this month, super-popular blog platform Tumblr sided with the latter argument. They instituted a policy that disallows users to “post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages readers to cut or injure themselves; embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or commit suicide…”

    Tumblr later clarified that the new policy would only prohibit blogs that were “dedicated to triggering self-harm,” and it wouldn’t affect those that are about discussion of issues like anorexia and bulimia.

    Over the weekend, Pinterest followed suit. On a blog post last Friday, they announced that they had updated their Acceptable Use Policy in order to not allow “pins that explicitly encourage self-harm of self-abuse.”

    The actual new provision to the policy reads that users cannot post content that “creates a risk of harm, loss, physical or mental injury, emotional distress, death, disability, disfigurement, or physical or mental illness to yourself, to any other person, or to any animal.”

    Many have said that Pinterest bowed to the pressure of those that are against “thinspo” content. One of the main critiques that caught fire was a March 19th article on Jezebel called “The Scary, Weird World of Pinterest Thinspo Boards.” That article quoted someone from the National Eating Disorders Association that broke down why Pinterest was such a good place for Thinspo to reside:

    Pinterest is a format that’s attractive to the pro-ana community because it’s both visual and highly interactive; young women (and some men) suffering from an eating disorder or teetering on the brink of disorder crave the unique combination of visibility and anonymity offered by the site. Pinterest users can swap photos of their most enviable shoulder blades in a supportive “community” of like-minded people, but because it’s on the internet they can do it from behind the protection of an anonymous handle.

    So, advocates of sites banning this type of content can rejoice at Pinterest‘s decision, right? Wrong, at least so far. Mashable points out that thinspo pins and board are still alive and well all over Pinterest.

    And it’s true. A quick search for thinspo within Pinterest yields tons of images of thin girls, motivational images with text like “You will regret eating that cookie, you will not regret running that mile” and “unless you puke, faint, or die, keep going.” These aren’t just ramdom pins, as there are also still plenty of boards left devoted to nothing but thinspo – many of them have hundreds of followers.

    I’m truly of mixed mind about this. I completely see the problem with blogs or pinboards dedicated to making sure girls stay thin. Not that thin girls are a problem, mind you, but because in the context of “thinspo” or “pro ana,” the practices that are encouraged to help them get/stay thin are unhealthy. There is a lot of variety on pins tagged thinspo on Pinterest, however. Many of the images, motivational posters, etc. aren’t promoting anorexia or bulimia specifically. Many promote exercise, and although some may be a little extreme, who should tell people that they are exercising too hard (besides maybe a doctor)?

    Not all of the images of girls taged thinspo are too thin either. Of course, this is not a scientific statement and I don’t know the girls’ weight or BMI, but the eye test tells me that many of the girls in the images aren’t unhealthy.

    Some of the images are scary though. And even the images that seems rather innocuous, when put into the context of a thinspo board, become helpers to an unhealthy (read anorexic) lifestyle. And i think that context has as much to do with it than anything.

    What do you think about thinspo content, and sities like Tumblr and Pinterest‘s decision to ban it? Are you concerned that this content still exists on Pinterest, even after they updated their policies? Let us know in the comments.

    UPDATE: We’ve received the following statement from a Pinterest spokesperson:

    Pinterest relies on its community to help identify and flag offensive content. Once offensive content has been reported, Pinterest reviews it on a case-by-case basis and immediately removes any pin that violates the Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy or Pin Etiquette.

    Basically, they’ll come down when they’re reported. Last night, I spoke to an avid Pinterest user who said that over the weekend, they’ve personally noticed that the amount of thinspo pins (especially images of thin women) present on the site was far less than last week.

  • New Tumblr Content Policy Will Ban Self-Harm, Pro-Ana Blogs

    Tumblr is entering thorny territory today with the announcement of an update to their content policy. In an official blog post, Tumblr announced that they plan to revise their current policy in a way that will prohibit self-harm blogs. To make sure that everybody has the same understanding here, self-harm blogs can include anything from pro-ana and thinspo blogs to self-mutilation and pro-suicide ideation. As of the current policy, Tumblr has no limitation on what kind of content such blogs can include.

    After internally debating the merits of hosting blogs that include self-harm content versus permitting them to stay up as public awareness, Tumblr drafted the following statement to be added in their Content Policy:

    Active Promotion of Self-Harm. Don’t post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-injury or self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages readers to cut or mutilate themselves; embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or commit suicide rather than, e.g., seek counseling or treatment for depression or other disorders. Online dialogue about these acts and conditions is incredibly important; this prohibition is intended to reach only those blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification. For example, joking that you need to starve yourself after Thanksgiving or that you wanted to kill yourself after a humiliating date is fine, but recommending techniques for self-starvation or self-mutilation is not.

    Additionally, Tumblr has decided to attach public service announcements to any tags associated with self-harm – like “bulimia”, “thinspiration”, “thinspo”, “proana”, or “purging” – that will include links to resources where people can get assistance.

    Already, the reactions on Tumblr following the tag “self-harm” are mixed, ranging from praise for axing pro-ana blogs to doubt over Tumblr’s free speech provision to outrage over the new prohibition. One detractor of the new content policy criticized Tumblr for the decision because she says it limits the support network for self-harm sufferers who may seek out such blogs as an outlet for help. Others acknowledge that Tumblr’s heart is in the right place but the execution of their mission to limit the blogs that promote self-harm is misguided. “Many use these blogs to connect with others and know they are not alone,” one Tumblr user wrote, “and to curtail that ability to connect will hurt far more than it helps.”

    Tumblr isn’t the only social media site to prohibit the content regarding self-harm. On the site’s Community Standards page, Facebook flatly states the site “is not a place for self-destructive behavior” and that they “don’t allow the promotion of suicide, cutting, eatings disorders, or illegal drug use.”

    Any site promoting content intended to encourage harmful behavior in people shouldn’t be permitted, period. It’s especially dangerous when a site fosters the self-harm ideation within a person already prone to hurt themselves. People die because of this stuff and while Tumblr’s new policy will eliminate blogs of this purpose, it doesn’t appear to discern them from support groups that may include self-harm content. Do you think Tumblr should more carefully distinguish between the two, or is it better to simply eliminate all of it so as to avoid any unintentional triggers for self-harm through those support groups? With the latter, do you think that the decision may limit the resources Tumblr users have with seeking support for self-harm problems?