Analysis of the social environment of eating disorders in science communication in China

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which Chinese eating disorder patients use social media as a medium to analyze the prevalence of eating disorder illness awareness, their interactive behaviors, characteristics, impact and possible problems. The overall social patterns can be summarized as help-seeking, self-referral, questioning and answering, mutual help, disease awareness enhancement, disease behavior improvement, weakening of the strained doctor-patient relationship, self-reinvention, partial recovery, sharing and spreading disease awareness.

METHODS:The ecology of eating disorders in three existing Chinese virtual social media platforms, in which the respondents were Chinese eating disorder science bloggers, was observed to assess the reach of their communication and the extent to which it influenced the audience's recovery from eating disorders.

Results: An overview of the existing situation of eating disorders on Weibo and Red Booklet platforms was conducted, and three social patterns were found: relying on virtual comfort, exploring illness problems, and seeking social support. An analysis of three changes in the socially mediated interaction behavior of eating disorders: a reduction in stigma, an increase in the rate of consultation and a lower age profile.

Discussion: With the rapid development of eating disorder internet science in China, the existing and possible problems in its development and the ways to improve it only have to be explored, e.g. "scientific and neutral communication of the disease", "sharing of cases and mutual support", "improvement of access to medical care". " three optimization strategies.