Anorexia in the Virtual World
Bear with me. I am not a doctor or a psychologist, and yet I want to talk anorexia nervosa - and on top of that I am about to explain things most Residents of Second Life® will already know. This can get boring…
With what we call the Appearance sliders, any Second Life user can completely shape his or her appearance in the virtual world. Large breasts, muscular arms, a big nose - anything goes and one doesn’t really need a lot of skills to be able to whip up a good looking shape.
Now I was always convinced that anorexia patients have a distorted view of how they look. They do not want to look the way they do - they look the way they do because they have a false image of themselves. The Wikipedia article linked to above confirms this: one of the symptoms mentioned is [d]isturbance in the way in which one’s body weight or shape is experienced.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a patient create her own ideal female body shape in Second Life? Give her the time to make a shape which for her represents how she would like to look. Then take that shape and directly compare it to how they look in real life. Perhaps seeing pictures of the real and the virtual body side by side can help them see the truth.
As I said - I am not a doctor or a psychologist. But this thought struck me and it’s perhaps too valuable to just let linger in my brain.
May 6, 2008 at 2:16 am
Wow. That’s a really intriguing thought.
At my eating disorders (ED) blog, I just wrote and wondered aloud if Second Life had a pro-ana (pro anorexia) contingent. Do you know if there are places where avatars are actively anorexic or bulimic in Second Life? I know you can do whatever you want… do inhabitants ever choose to have mental disorders like eating disorders, depression, et cetera?
May 6, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Angelique, I haven’t heard of people roleplaying any disorder, but there are self-help groups in SL, most notably for people with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. You (here I go in my SL Mentor role!) can use the Search engine, Groups tab to search for eating disorder groups, or of course start one of your own.
A group, mind you, costs L$ 100 to start (which is next to nothing in RL money) and needs to have at least two members. It gives you the possibility to communicate via private IM all over the world, send out notices and objects, and host discussions and such.
May 6, 2008 at 12:42 pm
At any time, contact me in-world if you want help with this. I could even cobble together the 100 L$ needed to get started - my friends and me would be happy to donate I’m sure.