New research has discovered more than 500,000 teenage girls have visited ‘Pro-Anorexia’ websites every year. Over 500 websites have been known to offer ‘thinspiration,’ encouraging girls to starve themselves, just drink coffee, smoke and take diet pill to achieve ‘the goddess’ look. Statistics show that 1 in 5 girls who have visited these websites are aged between 6-11.
The age of the users is astounding; anorexia usually begins in adolescence but these girls are far from their teenage-hood. Girls often look up to celebrity figures, aspiring to act and look like those they see in magazines, online and in the general public eye. To many vulnerable girls being skinny is pretty and attractive and find themselves obsessing over looks and the figures of others.
These figures show girls as young as 6 have searched these websites, but I want to know why these young girls have been allowed access on the internet and where do their parents fall into the situation? Parents need to control what their children view, it is one thing to see images of ‘aspiring’ celebrities in a newspaper but it is a completely different situation when children this young are permitted access to the internet to search for pro-anorexia websites, which from my point of view should not even exist in the first place.
The problem also lies with the websites regulation themselves, although these websites do not promote positive messages for young people as a whole, age restrictions should be made with consent from adults before users search the website. If children were not granted access to these websites, the statistics would be less significant or not even exist at all.
However many websites cannot take full control and responsibility of every user they have, this means it is up to parents to control what their children are viewing and searching for their own benefit. Parental control software is usually free, so why are Parents not taking the opportunity to install it for their children’s safety. It is sad to know cildren so young are worrying about body image instead of playing carelessly with their friends.
The use and abuse of the internet is becoming extremely concerning for young people, as these new figures show even the youngest of kids are being influenced from the internet, when will it stop?
Thr3e-Thinking 