To be sure, the collections of posts and pictures in the pro-anorexia groups are, if nothing else, clear proof of how detrimental the cultural cult of thinness is to the delicate psyche of a 14-year-old girl. Each club has a photograph of a stick-thin model as an icon -- never mind that many of those models themselves have eating disorders and drug-addiction problems, and certainly are no happier than the teenage girls who aspire to be them. As one girl poignantly posted in the "Always Anorexia" forums, "Seems like nothing in this life is ever easy ... except for those super thin models we're trying to look like. Why is it so easy for them?" The answer that the pro-anas don't seem to get, sadly, is that it isn't easy for models either.

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I want to weigh like I weighed in the 4th grade.
I want to be left alone.
I want to vanish.
I want to be able to go through a whole day without thinking about how many calories I've eaten.
I want to eat a piece of cake without crying. I want to look at the mirror without feeling horror.
I want to go on the scale and say "Wow that's great I've reached my goal, now I can stop."
I want to love myself.
-- From the home page of Liz, a 14-year-old pro-ana

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There are those who believe that they can infiltrate the pro-anorexia groups and help heal some of the sufferers they find there. Katie, an 18-year-old former anorexic from Michigan, suffered from the disease for three years, ending up in the hospital at 5-11 and 105 pounds, unable to even walk. These days, she hangs out in the Pro-Anorexia mailing list and offers the wisdom of her experience.

"I go there in hopes of talking sense into most of the girls, to shine the light of common sense on their destructive pursuits ... That has been the most helpful result of finding the group. Talking with people who understand me is priceless," Katie says. "But if I had found the group while still stuck in the depths of my eating disorder, it would have been horrible. To have the support and the advice, the resources and voices of experience all pointing me towards weight loss ... I would have been much worse."

The nascent movement to combat the pro-anorexia groups is even seeking (rather naively) to ban the pro-anorexia groups. The pro-anorexia mailing lists are increasingly peppered with the well-intentioned pleas of concerned posters who hope to talk the pro-anas out of their destructive ways. Unfortunately, the pleas seem to do very little except encourage the pro-anorexics to circle their wagons and go on the defense. And unless parents are actively screening every Web site their daughter visits or all the e-mail she receives, it's unlikely they'll ever know that their child belongs to the pro-ana movement.

The fact is, say experts, that anorexics, like any other kind of addict, can't be helped until they want to be helped. And the mantra of the pro-anorexic movement is that you don't need to be helped. The good news, however, is that when an anorexic decides that she does need help, there are resource sites like S.C.a.R.E.D., or communities that offer peer counseling, medical advice and support. The hope is that they'll get there before it's too late, before the warped illusion of control, the idea that happiness is just a few pounds out of reach if you have the discipline to get there, destroys their bodies forever.

"These girls need enormous support. At the same time, the medical-societal trend is to provide smaller amounts of funding for treatment," says Levenkron. "So they are turning to the people who say 'Don't worry honey, join our group and you'll feel good.' Medical and health insurance is offering less; and despairing chronics are, on a morale level, offering more. This will continue to proliferate until society says, 'Come back and belong to us.'"

Meanwhile, the pro-anorexics seem to think that what they have is better than nothing at all. Says Michelle, "I don't want to be anorexic for the rest of my life. I just want to find a comfortable weight to get at where I can take control of the situation completely. I will begin to eat more healthily and exercise as usual. And when I look at myself I will not only smile, but will be proud at what I have worked hard to achieve."

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