Parents are often the last to know how very unsafe the Internet can be for recovering eating disorder patients. For several reasons, parents should exercise caution and consider limiting access.

It is important to remember that while suffering from an eating disorder, the patient is often not able to hear or rationally process understand information about food and eating and body image. Messages about "health" and "calories" and "weight" can be distorted or obsessive. During and after recovery, patients regain the ability to assess and use information rationally.

Because a common symptom of an eating disorder is a sense of exaggerated virtue around the behaviors, there are over a million websites and online communities of patients who share tips on how to conceal the illness and methods to maintain the appearance of health despite medical risk. These websites are considered quite dangerous and damaging by many in the eating disorder treatment community. These sites spread incorrect ideas about the illness, and promote a belief that an eating disorder is a "lifestyle choice." They also offer very disturbing photographs of ill people and extreme thinness - content that can be both validating and torture to sufferers.

Many families are shocked to discover their own child has created a "blog" or "online diary" with explicit information about his or her own eating disorder, and communicates directly with other sufferers. This use of the Internet to find "support" may seem natural and positive, but it is often the case that the comfort offered and received is for the eating disorder and not for the suffering person .

Dieting, and weight loss literature, are ubiquitous on the web. Because the language of dieting is both attractive and reinforcing to patients suffering from an eating disorder, this can create an unhealthy environment for people struggling to comply with doctors' orders to regain weight and eat normally. As people with eating disorders tend to focus on food a great deal, naturally, they may frequent both dieting and cooking sites.

Calorie information, which can be a dangerous fixation and an unneeded distraction, is now available online for most packaged foods and restaurants. For families who are in charge of a loved one's meal preparation, efforts to relieve the patient of calorie counting may be undermined by these searches.

Patients often try to limit PARENT use of the Internet. A need to control the activities of others, including caregivers, is a common (temporary) symptom of eating disorders. Just as a patient may insist that family members follow certain rules about eating and food, there may be anger when a parent uses the Internet to seek information or support online. Parents have the right to use the Internet and other resources according to their own judgment. If necessary, separate accounts on a shared computer can allow parents the freedom to do their research and surfing without monitoring by other family members. It is also simple to erase one's surfing "history" (check your browser help section). This advice, of course, goes both ways: parents should know that their children may be covering Internet tracks as well.

Many clinicians and families advise limiting Internet use in the home during recovery. Just as a family might bar the viewing of inappropriate movies and unmonitored chat rooms, it is appropriate to treat unwelcome Internet content as a threat to a child's health during recovery and beyond. What may seem at first to be intrusive or controlling can be a helpful boundary for patients trapped in obsessive thoughts.

One option is to have family computers available only when adults are present and in view of the screen. Other options involve using software to block certain content, or to track Internet usage.

Further information:
F.E.A.S.T. parents discuss the issue
Surfing for Thinness - Stanford research on effects on eating disorder-promoting websites
Wikipedia on issue
Family Online Safety Institute
Get Net Wise
Choosing monitoring software
Australian government struggles with Internet filtering
On Guard Online