Eating disorder saga featured on ‘Today’
FORT WAYNE – The websites encourage women to lead a more “thinspirational” life. They provide diet tips and tricks – and doctored photos revealing impossible goals for women desperate to be in control of their bodies.
“Pro-ana” and “pro-mia” movements are just that: pro-anorexia and pro-bulima, and a local woman is sharing her experiences and thoughts about the sites this morning on NBC’s “Today” show.
Ana Mantica of Fort Wayne had an eating disorder, and she is scheduled to be on “Today” to discuss pro-ana and pro-mia websites, which she once used.
The show contacted the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, which called Linden Oaks Hospital and Arabella House in Naperville, Ill.
Mantica spent time in both facilities in late 2008 and early 2009. Linden Oaks is a treatment center for women with eating disorders, and Arabella House is an outpatient facility to help prepare women to return to their daily lives.
The segment was filmed at Arabella House with Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC’s chief medical editor and a South Side High School graduate.
It was the first time Mantica had returned to the facility, she said.
“It was very sort of bittersweet,” she said. “I was very excited to be there, very excited to see everybody again, but at the same time, it was a very emotional experience for me. It just reminded me of how difficult it was and the difficult times I’ve been through, how I’ve persevered and how much I’ve come though.”
Daytime