8.20.12: It is with great joy that I bring this news: An Indiana University study published this month in Health Communications shows
that participation in a ProAna Community actually *benefits*
participants! Those of us who are veterans of the Movement know this
well, but this is a cause for celebration: At last, beneath the detritus
of sensationalist media hype, the Voices of the Movement have been
heard: We are here to support one another in Living with ED's -- NOT to
recruit, promote, deny or glorify pathology!
IU researchers interview pro-anorexic bloggers for groundbreaking new study
Primary motivation of many was to seek social support and deal with stigma, not promote a 'lifestyle'
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 20, 2012
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A groundbreaking new research study
from Indiana University suggests there may be benefits to the
controversial activities of "pro-ana" bloggers, the online community for
people with eating disorders.
Most of the 33 bloggers from
seven countries interviewed for the study, which has just been
published in the journal Health Communication, said their writing
activities provide a way to express themselves without judgment, which
the authors believe can be crucial to their treatment.
"We don't know what are the effects of participating in this
community on health," said Daphna Yeshua-Katz, a doctoral student in
telecommunications in the IU College of Arts and Sciences. "But we do
know that the current therapy for eating disorders is not effective."
"These communities are providing support, albeit
supporting an illness that may result in someone's death," added Nicole
Martins, an assistant professor of telecommunications at IU. "But until
they're ready to go and seek recovery on their own terms, this might
actually be a way of prolonging their life, so that they are mentally
ready to tackle their recovery process.
"From the
outside looking in, this looks like a really disturbing community, but I
think that the fact that these women are able to find support from one
another and find a place where someone understands what they're going
through is a really good thing," Martins added.
They acknowledged that the study findings are different from media
coverage and other research about the pro-ana community.
The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated
Disorders in 2010 reported that eating disorders affect more than 11
million people in the United States alone. Anorexics lose between 15
and 60 percent of their body weight and are susceptible to osteoporosis
and heart ailments that can lead to death. It is viewed as a mental
illness.
Little is known about the "pro-ana" online
community because of the closeted and secretive nature of its members.
The IU study is believed to be the first one to focus on interviews
with the bloggers. Previous research in this area has centered on
content analysis of what these people, mostly women with the disorders,
are writing.
The researchers reached out to 300
bloggers and received a 10 percent response -- a statistically
significant response. Both men and women with eating disorders were
approached, but only women participated. Participants ranged in age
from 15 to 33. Most were attending high school or college, and all
lived in countries where anorexia is most common. About two-thirds
lived in the United States.
Yeshua-Katz said many bloggers
express themselves through song lyrics, music and photos that they call
"thinspiration," which are very controversial. Complaints from eating
disorder support groups have led Internet service providers to shut
down pro-anorexia websites, but the site administrators and bloggers
have remained resilient.
"They use the blogs to
look for support and understanding, but at the same time, the content
they display is something that for us -- people who are not sick -- is
very disturbing," she said. "Studies show that people with eating
disorders are stigmatized. Therefore these bloggers are looking for a
place to vent out and express themselves without judgment of others."
Yeshua-Katz, the lead author on the paper, frequently
researches how marginalized people are mediating their stigma through
social media.
"The results revealed that the
answers to why individuals are attracted to pro-ana sites have little
to do with the need to share a broad philosophy or outlook and may stem
from the desire simply to belong to a safe community of individuals
with similar experiences," the researchers wrote in the study.
Their primary motivation for blogging was to seek social
support. Most bloggers started publishing because they did not want to
feel alone and were interested in finding others like themselves. They
described interactions with family and friends as stressful "because
they lack the understanding of their situation, while online they
receive support constituted with sympathy, understanding and
encouragement."
About half of the bloggers also
said self-expression and the need to cope with social stigmas were
other motives. When asked to give an example of how blogging might help
them cope with stigma, six respondents answered that blogging offers
them a different reality.
The majority of the
sample reported that blogging about their illness improves their mood,
and they found relief through their writing. The support they found was
seen as unconditional.
"They receive encouragement
when they post about their weight loss success and comfort in
bloggers' comments when they fail in such efforts. Moreover, when a
user wants to stop self-harm behavior or go into recovery, the
community supports her choice too," the researchers explained.
"Our participants perceived the support within their ED
community to be stronger than the support they received for their
so-called strong ties to their offline life," they said, adding that
eight bloggers reported meeting other community members in person.
In medical literature, a patient's decision to find
support is seen as a good predictor of compliance and treatment leading
to a cure.
Nearly 20 percent of the women
interviewed for the study indicated that they were in the process of
going through recovery from the illness. One respondent, who was in
recovery, said that her blogging activities "gave her the skills to
talk about her illness in the recovery process."
Of the 33 women interviewed, 27 defined their eating disorder as a
mental illness and six said it was a coping mechanism. Contrary to
previous research based on content analysis of the blogs, only three of
those interviewed called anorexia a "lifestyle."
"In other words, people living with eating disorders are not purposely
making unhealthy or health-compromising decisions. They are trying to
find the best way they can to live with this disorder," the researchers
wrote.
"I think that's encouraging that a majority
don't look at it as a lifestyle," Martins said. "The silver lining is
there that if they realize that it's a disease, then maybe they'll
eventually seek help for it. But right now this is how they're coping."
While most studies make the claim that pro-ana
websites promote and maintain anorexia by sharing tips for weight loss
and concealing the disorder, only five bloggers mentioned this as a
reason to start their blogs.
"Participants in this
research, except for shutting down their blogs, did actively engage in
ways to warn their audience about the content and ignored or blocked
requests for tips and tricks from what they nicknamed 'wannarexics' --
young teenagers who want to become anorexic," the paper said.
Yeshua-Katz and Martins hope their research provides the
medical community with greater understanding of the people they are
treating. One of the bloggers they spoke to expressed difficulty finding
"recovery" blogs and still follows the pro-ana blogs because "it's
hard to totally abandon them."
"For example, they
were missing a 24-hour support place," Yeshua-Katz said. "We need to
see what about (the pro-ana blogs) is drawing people into the community
and design blogs for recovery that offer the same kind of useful
information so the recovery will work.
"By knowing
what they're doing in those blogs, we might be able to find better ways
to provide online support," she added.
The paper
also highlights a major paradox for the pro-ana community. "They go
online to vent out and to relieve stress. But then by having their
blog, by having their secret life, it adds another level of stress to
their life," Yeshua-Katz said. "There is an information game going on,
and it's very intense and stressful because your stigma is unknown."
Ten of the pro-ana bloggers actually produce two blogs -- a
"healthy" one for family members and friends and another about their
eating disorders.
"The fact that disordered eating
is such a solitary and isolating experience makes the Internet an ideal
place for offering support and advice," the researchers wrote. "The
pro-ana community is worth studying in its own right as a social space
that affords a style of interaction that would be highly unlikely to be
visible in the offline or pre-Internet environment."
