The article, “THE HUNGER BLOGS: A Secret World Of Teenage ‘Thinsperation,’” addresses how websites, such as Tumblr and Facebook, are becoming pro-anorexia and promoting eating disorders. These blogs are known as “thinspo” blogs, or blogs that are “thin-spirational” and include pictures of stick-thin girls and models as well as pro-anorexia quotes. When teenage girls view this blogs and see the photos of the super skinny models, for most girls, it makes them believe that they need to be that skinny too. One girl posted on her Tumblr pictures of “skinny, happy girls” and how when she sees pictures, of skinny girls, it makes her feel happy too. This same girl said that the fact that the model’ bones are visible in the pictures is “the most beautiful thing ever.” With the success of Tumblr, these pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia blogs are becoming more and more popular. “Fitspo” blogs, blogs that include photos of athletic girls and fitness-related quotes, have also been created and are promoting girls to try to look as fit as the photos on the blogs. When girls see pictures of extremely thin girls, for most girls, not only does it make them want to look skinny, like the models, but also it also sometimes makes girls think that it is good to be that skinny and that being that skinny makes you look beautiful. Especially, now a day, girls are so caught up in their appearance that many girls will do practically anything for them to look “beautiful.” Some of these Tumblr blogs include tips on how to starve off your hunger, such as chewing gum or eating ice. Some girls even blog about their weight loss goals. For example, one seventeen year old, 5’10” girl, blogged about her weight goal, which was 115 lbs., the average weight for a 4’10” girl. This adds to the negative idea that other girls are much skinnier and weigh less than you, so you should loose weight too. One girl, who was interviewed in this article admitted that these blogs are helping with weight loss ideas but they will not make her have an eating disorder, and she said, “I’m not afraid. I’m ready to risk for perfection.” I interpreted this that her idea of being perfect is being super skinny and that she is willing to risk anything, such as becoming anorexic of bulimic, in order to become “perfect.” Many girls think that blogging about eating disorders and pro-anorexia is okay, but it’s not. Someone blogged on Tumblr, “Your stomach isn’t grumbling, it’s applauding.” I found this extremely inappropriate and repulsive that someone would actually blog something like this. According to Eating Disorders Review, in a Chicago eating-disorder treatment center, “between 30 and 50 percent of its teen patients actively use social media to support their eating disorders.” Sadly, by these teens, as well as many others, it effects more and more teens that read the blogs. In addition to websites and blogs, some teenagers are now becoming addicted to using phone apps to track their daily calorie intake and/or daily fitness plans and calories burned, and then these results are blogged for others to see. Thankfully, the promotion of eating disorders on the internet, on websites such as Facebook and Tumblr) has come to the attention of NEDA, the National Eating Disorders Association, has started to take actions, trying to stop all the pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia blogging.
As a teenage girl, I think I can speak for most of us teenagers that media has effected our own body image and us. To begin with, girls are pretty competitive with each other when it comes to beauty, their body image, and looks. To add on top of all that, the media we see daily, whether it’s from commercials on TV, advertisements in magazines or on billboards, all the women and girls tend to be beautiful and skinny. This puts teenage girls, in a position that most of us do not want to be in, but no matter what, can’t get ourselves out of it, which forces some girls to become anorexic or bulimic.
I thought this article was really well written and had a great overall message. There was no tough vocabulary, in the article, which is perfect for high schoolers, the main age group as to whom this article was directed towards. I could see how adults, and even some teens, might find some of the terminology, such as “thinspo” and “fitspo,” confusing, but even that, the article did a great job explaining what all those terms meant. Overall, I think this was a great article and every teenager, especially girls, should read it.
Gregoire, Carolyn. “THE HUNGER BLOGS: A Secret World Of Teenage ‘Thinspiration.’” Huffingtonpost.com, 9 Feb. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/08/thinspiration-blogs_n_1264459.html?page=1>.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/08/thinspiration-blogs_n_1264459.html?page=1>.
I think my classmate, Jamie Carroll, did a fabulous job summarizing the article, “The Hunger Blogs: A Secret World of Teenage Thinsperation”. Jamie used clear and concise language to convey the message of the article. I also really enjoyed how Jamie chose an article that has to do with our everyday lives that others are able to easily relate to. Lastly, I think Jamie did an excellent job using specific quotes from the article to describe the effects of these blogs on our society.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the summary was near perfect, there were a few things that could have contributed to Jamie’s write up. I thought the summary was excellent, however, I would have liked to see more analysis of the article in the following two paragraphs. Also, although it was fairly easy to interpret, an explanation of certain new terminology such as “fitspo” would have helped the flow of the summary.
Before reading Jamie’s review of this article, I had no idea how serious these social networking websites had on teenage girls. While most attention is focused on the negative effects of cyber bullying on the internet, I have almost never heard anyone mention the effects it has on eating disorders.
The reviewer, Jamie Carroll, did a great job of reviewing and selecting the keys point of the article. She helped me to understand the article ‘The Hunger Blog’. It was good that she included her own thoughts of the article into the review. I found interesting because I have the same views as her on this topic. Jamie, also related to this topic of hunger blogs to herself and how it affects her and other girls her age. It was good to see Jamie standing up for teens like me and expressing how she feels in these situations.
ReplyDeleteEven though she did a great job, she repeated herself a little too much by expressing that these blogs were ‘helping’ many teens to lose the weight because it looks ‘beautiful.’ She did not include much information about Kate, who leads the double life, I thought it would be interesting to see what she thought about Kate and how her and other models are influencing teens.
I was shocked with the quote she used ‘Your stomach isn’t grumbling, its applauding’ I found this disturbing and awful that someone would encourage another teen like this to help them lose weight. I think that the overall image of being ‘skinny’ is ‘beautiful’ is overrated. I wasn’t aware of these hunger blogs and it is interesting to what they are all about.
I think my classmate, Jamie Carroll, did a good job reviewing this article and bringing these disturbing blogs to our attention. Jamie review the article, “The Hunger Blogs: A teen World of Thinsperation”, which explains how teenage girls these days blog about their unhealthy weight loss girls. I think Jamie did an excellent job simplifying the article so that every reader could understand what these girls are doing to themselves. I also enjoyed how she connected the review to someone’s everyday life. She explains that most teenage girls these days are obsessed with being just like the supermodels or celebrities, and would do anything to be like that. I also liked how Jamie gave specific examples from Face book and Tumblr, which gave me a good idea of what is going on in these girls’ heads.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I did enjoy Jamie’s article, I do have some suggestions for her. For example, I would have liked to read how successful these blogs are. If she told me that these “Thinsperation” blogs were attracting hundreds of girls, that would have been an important statistic. I would have also liked to hear a little more statistics behind anorexia. Maybe some numbers on how much the internet affects anorexia and bulimia patients. I have heard a lot about these disorders, but I don’t know how many people are affected by it.
Before I read Jamie’s review and the article, I would have never even thought of girls using the internet to inspire their weight loss. If really bothers me that girls, who are perfectly healthy, are hurting themselves and getting inspiration from the internet. The internet is extremely influential, but using it in this way is just disgusting. I have heard many girls talk about how they are unhappy with themselves, there is nothing wrong with getting healthy, but I hope that they do it in a safe way. This article and review opened my eyes to how influential and dangerous these social networks can be to young teenagers.
My classmate, Jamie Carroll, did a great job of reviewing the article “The Hunger Blogs: A Secret World of Teenage Thinsperation”. Jamie seemed very passionate about the topic, and conveyed this with her language. Jamie was also incredibly straightforward in her second paragraph, in relating the article to our world and talking about it’s negative consequences. Lastly, she chose an article with a quite a bit of talk of technology, and was really able to convey the worst things about websites and blogs such as Tumblr, and the negatives of collectively starving with other people and communicating it through the internet.
ReplyDeleteWhile Jamie did a fantastic job, most of what she wrote was summary, and her first paragraph was huge. This made it somewhat hard to digest (pun not intended) all of the information being thrown our way. Second, she becomes incredibly caught up in particular stories and accounts, which takes from the article overall, and sidetracks the reader.
One astounding aspect of the article was the article being reviewed itself. It is unbelievable to think that people, especially girls, are going to lengths to starve themselves, and becoming very sick and unhealthy. Jamie’s review really opened my eyes to one of the greatest problems facing United States today: Obsession with being skinny, to the point where it’s unhealthy. That’s why this article gave me an education on Thinsperation.
I think that my classmate, Jamie, did an excellent job of reviewing this article. The thing I most liked about her review was that it drew me in right from the beginning and immediately after finishing her review I was interested in reading the article. Furthermore, after reading the article I really saw how well Jamie was able to summarize the entire article concisely and clearly. The article was long and Jamie was able to condense all the important information; her summary was clear and to the point. Lastly, I really appreciated the fact that she used many facts and quotes to support what she was summarizing. Those quotes from the article are really what made her review interesting and what made me want to read the article. The facts were shocking and ultimately helped to capture the gravity of the problem that the article addresses. Overall Jamie did an excellent summarizing the article. She helped to expose a problem that is, for the most part, unknown.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Jamie did a great job reviewing this article there were some issues with the review. I thought that she was a little repetitive at some points in the review. For example, she stated the idea that when girls read the Tumblr blogs and see photos of anorexic girls they think that they have to be that skinny. This is an important idea, however it doesn’t need to be stated twice. I also noticed that there were a couple of grammatical errors throughout the article. This made the review difficult to read at points and made the writing less smooth.
This review brought to my attention a problem that I had never heard of. I didn’t know that girls were blogging, basically, about how to be anorexic. I never knew how messed up some girls could get about weight and how obsessed they could be when it came to looking “perfect.”