“Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” So say thousands of teenage girls across the country, known as pro-ana’s (anorexia). In their world they look for thinspiration (abbreviated ‘thinspo), from photos of skinny or bony celebrities or models. Sometimes taking the form of celebrities who have lost a great deal of weight. Thinspiration can apparently come from anywhere, books, quotes, song lyrics and films.
Whoa.

Thinspo videos currently number in the thousands on YouTube, FaceBook and MySpace. Accompanied by inspirational messages as the one shared above, which promote the idea of anorexic thinness as the ideal.

In case you feel out of touch (as I did), thinspo as defined by the ever popular online urban dictionary identifies the term as a combination of the words thin and inspiration.
And if you Google ‘thinspo’ you will find as the first link a photobucket account that shares many pictures of emaciated models and actresses accompanied by the following quote:

“View and share thinspo images and thinspo pictures and thinspo videos online. Find a great selection of thinspo photos”

These examples were given are:
Girl 1: My thinspo is this picture of Mary-Kate Olsen.
Girl 2: The Victoria's Secret models are my thinspo.

From the urban dictionary, the slang ‘thinspo’ is used by people suffering from eating disorders to help keep them inspired. Apparently, the idea behind thinspo is that it helps motivate and inspire you to lose weight and become or stay thin.

Thankfully, there is some hopeful news on the cyber-front. More on this story here.

Tags: thinspiration , thinspo , healthy lifestyles , perfectionism .