Abstract
Online support groups have become highly attractive to seekers of health advice. These sites offer rich online support and information, which may be enjoyed in a nonthreatening environment. The "bodiless" nature of online support groups helps ensure participants' sense of safety, because judgments relating to physical appearances are largely decreased. This article examines interaction in an online eating disorder support group, where such safety cannot be assumed. Because women with anorexia and bulimia routinely discuss problems relating to appearances (size and weight), the risk of monitoring and negatively evaluating oneself and others jeopardizes the safety of interaction in this online context. In a microlevel discourse analysis of three exchanges, the linguistic structure and joint nature of creating a safe communicative context is traced, as it unfolds amid solving a problem concerning physical appearances. The aim is to illuminate the therapeutic potential of online forums for women with eating disorders, namely, as safe spaces for coping with eating disorder-related problems. This study calls for increased inquiry of online forums as viable alternatives to face-toface eating disorder support groups, as anorexia and bulimia continue to proliferate in the United States.
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