Making an expert: Sources and their contributions in news coverage of orthorexia nervosa

Abstract

In 1997, Steven Bratman, a physician specializing in alternative medicine, proposed he had identified a new eating disorder, a pathological fixation with healthy eating. Soon after, orthorexia nervosa, as he called it, began appearing in newspapers – long before it did in scientific venues. Using a mixed-methods analysis of 492 articles published between 1998 and 2016, I examine the various actors who have participated in orthorexia coverage, including those who were assigned expertise on the unofficial diagnosis. The findings demonstrate a variety of credentialed and non-credentialed sources contributed to media coverage in different ways. Experts in mental illness appeared less often than other healthcare providers, including Bratman and dietitians. Based on the findings, I argue for a more nuanced understanding of expertise to better evaluate source selection in medical journalism and propose a typology that considers both the nature of the claims and the qualifications of the person making them. I conclude with several hypotheses about news coverage of novel conditions undergoing biomedicalization.

Keywords

Diagnosis expertise medical journalism orthorexia nervosa sources

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