Have hordes of baby anorexics taken over Allure magazine's online message boards?

WEIGHTY ISSUES Allure

On the Condé Nast title's website, readers, presumably somewhere near the mag's 30-ish demographic, are invited to log on and participate in a Total Makeover and get tips on diet and fitness. Via a red button labeled "Panic," they can join a chat room to get "thinspiration" and gab about the merits of Pilates versus yoga. But a startling number of the posts aren't coming from the cosmopolitan women the beauty rag targets—they're coming from desperate girls as young as 12. Some resulting comment threads, with titles like "Starving Myself," have morphed into disturbing, soft-core chats between high school and middle school girls of normal weight.

Says one underage poster (tag: "imsougly"), "I'm so fat and I'm only 14. My sister is thin and beautiful and I'm a short blubber ball." Another, "sooxxobvious," trills, "I'm 13 ... I [weigh] 136 now. And I want to get to at least 110. I know [it's] extreme, but I'm gonna do it. I mean really: hot guys on the beach in a bikini oh dear lord." Two additional discussions began, "Anyone 12-14?" and "Anyone 12-13 overweight?" prompting one lone poster to comment, "Is anyone even slightly disturbed by this? ... I'm absolutely speechless."

The site's disclaimer reads: "Please note that while we review every thread that is reported, the forums are unmoderated," and a rep for Allure told Radar, "Our intention is to host a responsible forum. Upon hearing that some users have not met the criteria of our user agreement we are taking steps to correct this."

So, in a blow to the mini wannabe skinnies, it appears they might have to take their fat chat back to third period biology, a safe place where they can fire off texts like: "OMG, so fat, never eating again, LOL!" to their hearts content.