There is a whole sub-culture on the internet which actually encourages young girls to purposely develop anorexia and bulimia. Websites and Facebook pages of the like even explain to these girls the hows to achieving this end. What is happening here is that they are preying on the most vulnerable - those young girls (and occasionally men) already in possession of poor body image, confidence, and self-esteem. These people encouraging such steps rely upon the unrealistic unattainable ideals of body image that hammer women and girls of all ages as being what they ought to appear as. As long as we have waifs of models and celebrities shoved down the throats of the young and vulnerable this is going to happen - that they wish they were sick enough to have an all out disorder. It is my understanding that for a true eating disorder, it is a matter of control. Those that develop them generally have no control in their lives - their eating habits are the one thing they can manage to do so. They don't particularly want to have an ED, for them it is a manner of self-medicating another problem much as any addiction starts out as.