Presentation about the use of social media in anorexia based on those two studies: Syed-Abdul S, Fernandez-Luque L, Jian WS, Li YC, Crain S, Hsu MH, Wang YC, Khandregzen D, Chuluunbaatar E, Nguyen PA, Liou DM Misleading Health-Related Information Promoted Through Video-Based Social Media: Anorexia on YouTube J Med Internet Res 2013;15(2):e30 DOI: 10.2196/jmir.2237 PMID: 23406655 PMCID: PMC3636813 Yom-Tov E, Fernandez-Luque L, Weber I, Crain SP Pro-Anorexia and Pro-Recovery Photo Sharing: A Tale of Two Warring Tribes J Med Internet Res 2012;14(6):e151 DOI: 10.2196/jmir.2239 PMID: 23134671 PMCID: PMC3510717

1. Pro-anorexia and social media
Luis Fernandez Luque (@luisluque), eHealth
Researcher, Norut Tromsø (Norway)

2. Pro-anorexia
 Anorexia has a huge impact in the
health and quality of life of patients
and relatives.
 Pro-anorexia: anorexia as a lifestyle.
 Well-known problem for nearly a
decade.
 Watching pro-anorexia website can
affect the health of the viewers.
 13% of female teenagers have
reported using pro-anorexia webs in
a Belgium study
References available at: http://www.jmir.org/2013/2/e30/

3. Pro-Anorexia and Social Media

4. Pro-Anorexia in Norway

6. Misleading Health-Related Information
Promoted Through Video-Based Social
Media: Anorexia on YouTube
Syed-Abdul S, Fernandez-Luque L, Jian WS, Li YC, Crain S, Hsu MH, Wang
YC, Khandregzen D, Chuluunbaatar E, Nguyen PA, Liou DM. Misleading
Health-Related Information Promoted Through Video-Based Social Media:
Anorexia on YouTube. J Med Internet Res 2013;15(2):e30

7. Study goals
• YouTube is one of the most
visited webpages worldwide
• No studies on the prevalence of
pro-anorexia videos on
YouTube.
• 26% of American teenagers
have posted videos online.

8. Study Methods
• We extracted 7583 anorexia-related videos and
analized 140 (most popular, random, etc.) and
classified them in:
– Informative videos
– Pro-anorexia
– Un-related

9. Pro-anorexia videos

10. Informative videos

11. Results I
• Around 1/3 of the videos were pro-anorexia, half
informative and 20% unrelated.
• If extrapolated, we can expect more than 2.000
videos promoting anorexia in YouTube.
• Pro-anorexia videos had less views, but were
more favorited (3x) and had more rating activity
(2X).

12. Results II
• The top-20 pro-anorexia videos had 9.5 million
views.
• We studied demographic information available in
15 videos. Minors were in the top-age group in
80% of them.

13. Conclusions
• There is a need for better tools to filter pro-
anorexia content.
• Pro-anorexia videos are highly rated.
• Pro-anorexia videos are being watch by minors

14. Pro-Anorexia and Pro-Recovery Photo
Sharing: A Tale of Two Warring Tribes
Yom-Tov E, Fernandez-Luque L, Weber I, Crain SP Pro-Anorexia and Pro-
Recovery Photo Sharing: A Tale of Two Warring Tribes J Med Internet Res
2012;14(6):e151

15. Study goal
• To study the social network dimanics of the pro-
anorexia and pro-recovery communities in the
photo-sharing social network Flickr.
• Previous studies only focused on pro-anorexia
communities and not in the interaction.

16. Anorexia and Flickr

17. Methods
• We extracted information about 491 users both
pro-anorexia and pro-recovery. These users had
posted 242,710 photos.
• Social Network Analysis, Data Mining and other
techniques were applied to understand better the
dynamics.

18. Results I
• There are two clearly
separated and inter-
mindgle communities.
• Network graphs
(blue=pro-recovery,
red=pro-anorexia) based
on (from top left,
clickwise): contacts,
favorites, tags,
comments.

19. Results II - differences
• Pro-anorexia users post less photos of themselves.
• Pro-recovery are more active but publish about a
wider set of topics.
• Pro-anorexia users are much likely to favorite a photo
from an pro-anorexia user than by an pro-recovery.
• Pro-recovery users often try to engage pro-anorexia
users by using the same keywords in their photos
(e.g. pro-anorexia)

20. Results II - influences
• When a pro-recovery user commented on a photo of a
pro-anorexia user, the pro-anorexia user was more
likely to continue posting pro-anorexia photos.
• When a pro-anorexia user comments on a photo of a
pro-recovery user, the pro-recovery user is more likely
to stop posting pro-recovery photos.
• The influence of pro-anorexia users is higher than pro-
recovery users.

21. Results II - Conclusions
• The pro-anorexia network dynamics are far more
complex than expected.
• Social clues are crucial for filtering pro-anorexia
content.
• Better understanding of network dynamics can help to
design better public health interventions and avoid
counter-effects.

22. Questions ?
Luis Fernandez Luque (luis.luque@norut.no)