Learning how to stay healthy has become increasingly easy with the growth of the Internet — but according to a recent study, so has maintaining and hiding eating disorders.

A new study by a professor in the Department of Communication at MSU analyzed the content of Web sites promoting eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

The sites are called pro-ana and pro-mia and, according to the study, are focused on maintaining unhealthy and destructive behaviors.

Maria Knight Lapinski, assistant professor of communication and author of the study, StarvingforPerfect.com: A Content Analysis of Pro-Eating Disorder Web Sites, said the study showed that these sites lacked a "theory of risks method."

"Usually you try to promote how bad something is when you are trying to stop behavior," Lapinski said, giving the example of lung cancer and smoking. The risk factor is lung cancer, and the fear of that risk brings a person to stop smoking.

"What was interesting as a communication researcher (is) that these Web sites don't promote perceptions of risk — they don't have to tell these people that it's bad to get fat," Lapinski said. "What they are doing is giving them the tools to help them maintain their eating disorder."

Tiffany Titus, a graduate student and co-president of Respecting and Understanding Body Image, or RUBI, said she would visit the sites when she was struggling with an eating disorder, making it worse.

"I would occasionally visit them … I think they don't know how powerful they are," she said.

An eating disorder will skew the individual's perspective, not only on body image but on what is good for them, Titus said. "If you are fully immersed in your eating disorder, it may seem positive — but it is really negative."

Titus said the sites aim to justify the disorders and make readers feel like there is nothing wrong with their behavior.

The pages of pro-ana and pro-mia sites may host pictures of obese people with a caption "what we never want to be" or will feature rows of pictures of "perfect" bodies to give readers an ideal to aim for. Tips on how to hide the disorder, as well as how to reduce eating, are commonly in the site content.

Often the home page will be marked with a disclaimer, stating the site is not meant to bring harm to the readers. One pro-ana site's disclaimer stated:

"This is a pro-ana Web site. That means this is a place where anorexia is regarded as a lifestyle and a choice, not an illness or disorder. There are no victims here."

Pro-ana and pro-mia sites are continuously on the move because servers refuse to host their controversial content, Lapinski said. The study was based on 19 sites all found within a 24-hour period.

"When they first came out, Yahoo took them off because they are dangerous," said Ronda Bokram, a nutritionist at Olin Health Center. "(Looking at the sites) feels good because it's like you have found your own community; no one is going to attack you or criticize you."

Bokram, who works with eating disorder victims, said oftentimes people will seek them out as a way to deal with other issues in their lives.

"Not everyone who is exposed (to a site) develops an eating disorder," she said. "But you can't predict the future, and you can't predict those who are most vulnerable."