Starving for Support: How Women With Anorexia Receive ‘Thinspiration’ on the Internet

Visions of recovery: a cross-diagnostic examination of eating disorder pro-recovery communities on TikTok

Individuals seeking support or inspiration for eating disorder recovery may turn to pro-recovery content on social media sites such as TikTok. While research has thus far treated pro-recovery social media as a fairly homogeneous space, many pro-recovery hashtags single out particular eating disorder diagnoses. This exploratory study used codebook thematic analysis of 241 popular pro-recovery videos on TikTok to compare the presentation of eating disorders and eating disorder recovery across five different diagnosis-specific hashtags: #anarecovery, #arfidrecovery, #bedrecovery, #miarecovery, and #orthorexiarecovery. These hashtags refer to the following eating disorder diagnoses respectively: anorexia nervosa, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, and orthorexia nervosa. Our analysis generated the following qualitative themes across the entire dataset: (1) centrality of food to eating disorders and recovery, (2) what eating disorders look and feel like, (3) recovery as a process, (4) getting and giving help, and (5) negotiating diet culture in recovery. To supplement our qualitative findings and facilitate cross-diagnostic comparisons, we also conducted one-way ANOVAs and chi-square tests to probe for statistically significant differences in audience engagement and code prevalence across the different hashtags. Our results indicate that there are clear differences in how recovery is envisioned on TikTok based on which diagnostic hashtags are employed. Such variations in how different eating disorders are imagined on popular social media demand further investigation and clinical consideration.

Media Images of Anorexia: Effects of Moderate vs. Extreme Anorexia-Related Messages on Young Women

The aim of the study was to examine which type of anorexia-related messages have been presented on television and how they have affected young women in Israel. An empirical study was performed in two parts: (1) Anorexia-related stories that had aired on the news editions of commercial TV channels in Israel were categorized by code page. (2) A random sample was conducted among 291 women, aged 13-35. Every interviewee was requested to complete one online questionnaire that differed in its attached video message: an extreme or a moderate anorexia-related message. 71.4% of the tv-stories featured a young anorexic woman suffering from extreme underweight. Moreover, the extreme message resulted in higher reaction than the moderate message and less agreement with the message (rejecting anorexia and preferring that it be eradicated). Theoretical and practical implications of the findings will be discussed.

Differences in physical status, mental state and online behavior of people in pro-anorexia web communities

BACKGROUND

There is a debate about the effects of pro-anorexia (colloquially referred to as pro-ana) websites. Research suggests that the effect of these websites is not straightforward. Indeed, the actual function of these sites is disputed, with studies indicating both negative and positive effects.

AIM

This is the first study which systematically examined the differences between pro-anorexia web communities in four main aspects: web language used (posts); web interests/search behaviors (queries); users' self-reported weight status and weight goals; and associated self-reported mood/pathology.

METHODS

We collected three primary sources of data, including messages posed on three pro-ana websites, a survey completed by over 1000 participants of a pro-ana website, and the searches made on the Bing search engine of pro-anorexia users. These data were analyzed for content, reported demographics and pathology, and behavior over time.

RESULTS

Although members of the main pro-ana website investigated appear to be depressed, with high rates of self-harm and suicide attempts, users are significantly more interested in treatment, have wishes of procreation and reported the highest goal weights among the investigated sites. In contrast, users of other pro-ana websites investigated, are more interested in morbid themes including depression, self-harm and suicide. The percentage of severely malnourished website users, in general, appears to be small (20%).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results indicate that a new strategy is required to facilitate the communication between mental health specialists and pro-ana web users, recognizing the differences in harm associated with different websites.