Dr. Linda Helps - Magazines, television, movies, and MTV vie for the attention of our daughters and promise them happiness through fashion, being thin and sexuality. Lately, a new source of influence has been added to the mix of media messages. It is Web sites designed and operated by those who glorify their eating disorders and encourage others to stay sick.

One such Web site warns the user to stay away if she is trying to recover. Other pro-eating disorder sites celebrate dysfunction, provide insider tips on how to maintain dangerously low weights, and secretly abuse laxatives and vomit. Pictures of anorexic-looking celebrities are posted. Challenges to keep your weight below 100 pounds are issued. Women are encouraged to band together and support each other in their desire to stay ill. Ways to hide food and fool friends and relatives are discussed. Former patients brag about noncompliance to eating disorder programs they've attended. Girls even are encouraged to send in pictures of themselves in skeletal form and self-mutilating.

I visited several of these sites and felt sick to my stomach. These girls are totally deceived by an enemy who wants them destroyed. Eating disorders are serious and can lead to complicated medical problems, including death. Anyone who celebrates such danger is obviously in need of a renewed mind and healing. And women who desperately try to create community through emotional illness are hurting.

The young women who host these sites need a revelation of God. They need a program, such as Mercy Ministries, that will not only treat their problems, but also their souls. They need Jesus to wrap His arms around them and love them as only He can. They need to be healed and transformed. But, this takes recognition of the need. Pray for their spiritual eyes to be opened.

If you know someone who minimizes her eating problems or thinks she has found a positive form of identity through having an eating disorder, follow these steps and never forget the power of intercessory prayer.

Steps to Confront Eating Disorders:

• Start with the truth. Eating disorders are deadly and never to be glorified or envied.
  
• Stop getting support from those who encourage your sick behavior and are not grounded in Scripture. Break off unhealthy friendships.
  
• Do not go by your feelings. Feelings can't be trusted and are subject to change. Therefore, you must believe by faith that you need help even if you do not feel like it.
  
• Surrender to God. You are out of control whether you acknowledge it or not. Change is possible if you cooperate with treatment and God.
  
• Trust God and those who are trying to help you. Trust is usually suspect if you have been hurt in the past.
  
• Pray for a change of heart. Ask God to soften your heart and to speak to you. He will. Develop an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
  
• Be willing to tackle underlying issues. You may be struggling over weight and food, but these are symbolic of other deeper issues.
  
• Read the Word and learn about your heavenly Father. He is good, loving, and wants the best for you. Do not transfer your ideas about earthly relationships on to God. Instead, read what the Bible has to say about God.
  
• Admit defeat because when we acknowledge our weakness, then we become strong.

Dr. Mintle is author of the book, Getting Unstuck from Anxiety, Depression and Eating Disorders, published by Creation House, 1999.

Dr. Mintle – author, professor, Approved Supervisor and Clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy – is a speaker and media personality, as well as a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty years in psychotherapy practice.

For more articles and information, visit Dr. Linda Mintle's Web site.