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" February 26th-March 3rd is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. This week&amp;#039;s guest bloggers are from Proud2Bme, the National Eating Disorder Association&amp;#039;s new website for teens. Today&amp;#039;s guest blogger, Scarlet Hemkes, founded her own organization as a reaction to the pro-ana blogs she was discovering online. When I was sixteen, I started dieting. I wasn&amp;#039;t happy with myself or with my life. If I had known then what I know now, I never would have started. I had to quit school, I lost friends and most of all, I lost my energy to live. I got really depressed and lonely. I started binge eating, which made this period the worst time of my life. When my eating disorder was at its worst, I didn&amp;#039;t know about the existence of pro-ana websites and thinspiration blogs. I am grateful for that. I would have been obsessed with the pictures of skinny girls on Thinspo Tumblrs. They would have motivated me and inspired me in all the wrong ways. They would have helped me to destroy my life more than I was already destroying it on my own.  I can understand why some girls visit these dangerous websites and blogs. I cannot understand why people are allowed to host them. Thankfully, Tumblr has just announced a new policy to ban content that promotes eating disorders. They&amp;#039;ll also provide resources like the National Eating Disorders Association for people who search for this harmful stuff. Girls struggling with eating disorders and body image issues need a safe place to talk and to support each other. That is why I created Proud2Bme, a positive alternative to pro-ana and thinspo. It first launched in my home country of Holland and is now available to teens in the U.S. I saw a need for a website that would give hope. I&amp;#039;m proud of the community I&amp;#039;ve built. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/health/q-and-a/a17742/inspiration-not-thinspiration/>