TY - JOUR
T1 - “I just want to be skinny.”
T2 - A content analysis of tweets expressing eating disorder symptoms
AU - Cavazos-Rehg, Patricia A.
AU - Krauss, Melissa J.
AU - Costello, Shaina J.
AU - Kaiser, Nina
AU - Cahn, Elizabeth S.
AU - Fitzsimmons-Craft, Ellen E.
AU - Wilfley, Denise E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Cavazos-Rehg et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - There is increasing concern about online communities that promote eating disorder (ED) behaviors through messages and/or images that encourage a “thin ideal” (i.e., promotion of thinness as attractive) and harmful weight loss/weight control practices. The purpose of this paper is to assess the content of body image and ED-related content on Twitter and provide a deeper understanding of EDs that may be used for future studies and online-based interventions. Tweets containing ED or body image-related keywords were collected from January 1-January 31, 2015 (N = 28,642). A random sample (n = 3000) was assessed for expressions of behaviors that align with subscales of the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) 16.0. Demographic characteristics were inferred using a social media analytics company. The comprehensive research that we conducted indicated that 2,584 of the 3,000 tweets were ED-related; 65% expressed a preoccupation with body shape, 13% displayed issues related to food/eating/calories, and 4% expressed placing a high level of importance on body weight. Most tweets were sent by girls (90%) who were 19 years old (77%). Our findings stress a need to better understand if and how ED-related content on social media can be used for targeting prevention and intervention messages towards those who are in-need and could potentially benefit from these efforts.
AB - There is increasing concern about online communities that promote eating disorder (ED) behaviors through messages and/or images that encourage a “thin ideal” (i.e., promotion of thinness as attractive) and harmful weight loss/weight control practices. The purpose of this paper is to assess the content of body image and ED-related content on Twitter and provide a deeper understanding of EDs that may be used for future studies and online-based interventions. Tweets containing ED or body image-related keywords were collected from January 1-January 31, 2015 (N = 28,642). A random sample (n = 3000) was assessed for expressions of behaviors that align with subscales of the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) 16.0. Demographic characteristics were inferred using a social media analytics company. The comprehensive research that we conducted indicated that 2,584 of the 3,000 tweets were ED-related; 65% expressed a preoccupation with body shape, 13% displayed issues related to food/eating/calories, and 4% expressed placing a high level of importance on body weight. Most tweets were sent by girls (90%) who were 19 years old (77%). Our findings stress a need to better understand if and how ED-related content on social media can be used for targeting prevention and intervention messages towards those who are in-need and could potentially benefit from these efforts.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060113085&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0207506
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0207506
M3 - Article
C2 - 30650072
AN - SCOPUS:85060113085
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 14
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 1
M1 - e0207506
ER -