Sky News Interview (11/09/14)

I was asked by Beat if I was willing to be interviewed on the dangers of 'Thinspo' and 'Pro-Ana' on social media a few weeks ago and I immediately put myself forward.

On Thursday a Sky News reporter and a cameraman came to my house to ask me questions on how much these images have impacted upon my life.

Having been personally affected by this I was extremely passionate about reaching out to other sufferers. I want to use my experience as a warning to parents, relatives, and friends of those with Eating Disorders that such images exist. But also to young girls who might currently aspire to look like these images.

As a person recovering from Anorexia myself, I used to spend my days fascinated by pictures of severely underweight bodies. I was jealous and I used the images to prevent myself from eating. It was extremely addictive and fuelled my restriction. At my worst I would spend 5-6 hours a day refreshing the feeds for new and 'inspiring' bodies I could become. Well...if I continued to starve myself that is. Even now my perception of what a healthy body should look like is extremely skewed and I still mentally fixate on being thin and dainty like the images that used to plague my mind.

I don't believe these emaciated bodies and unreal images cause Eating Disorders; the causes are usually from genetics and environment along with life events. However, the images exacerbate the illness and give sufferers ideals which are not healthy and are frankly unattainable unless you are a skeleton. In this case the person in the images would either be dying or already be dead. The angles of the images are also misleading and most are taken with the person breathing in or posing in an unnatural way. Thigh gaps are particularly misleading because the person merely needs to lean forwards and stick their lower half backwards - anyone can have a thigh gap if they stood like this. But to vulnerable people they don't notice the angles and therefore believe that these bodies are attainable and they must be able to reach that 'look' themselves. Photoshop is also used to increase certain areas such as your bust and decrease your waist; in reality a person can't attain this unless they had surgery. These images are not natural and they are not healthy.

So why do sites such as Google, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook allow images to be so accessible? It's possibly due to the nature of social media; it's incredibly hard to police. The amount of images continues to rise and there is literally no way of deleting them all especially if people behind them continue to tag them with new words all deriving from Anorexia. I do want to praise Tumblr and Instagram because they do now provide messages to their users with information on Eating Disorders and where to go to get help. These messages pop up the minute you type in 'Anorexia'. This is a definite step in the right direction but I do feel more needs to be done.

Awareness is key and I've always stood by the view that prevention is better than cure. Eating Disorders are dangerous and they have the highest mortality rate of any other Mental Illness. Therefore more needs to be done in protecting vulnerable people from images which are unhealthy and lead to masses of health problems should the sufferer use them as their goal. Reality is that 1 in 5 sufferers will die either due to complications of their Eating Disorder or from suicide.

This is a shocking statistic.

I hope that once my feature is broadcast it will reach out to viewers nationwide. If it can help one person then I believe it was all worth it. My aim in recovery is to be open about my struggles and my worst days because, although it's painful, it may help those who are falling into similar behaviours.