Recovery or harm? The role of Instagram in eating disorders

This article aims at analysing the role of Instagram in the treatment of eating disorders. The objective is to investigate how people with anorexia nervosa use Instagram. The hypothesis to be verified is whether the use of this social media by those who are trying to cure eating disorders may pose risks to the healing process. Therefore, a simultaneous, multi-method study was performed. The core component of the research was the content analysis of a sample of posts (images and captions) selected by Instagram, while the supplementary component was a focus group with people suffering from eating disorders, treated by a specialized Italian centre. The study highlighted the prevalence of potentially risky contents. Images and texts seem to reveal an inclination to the spectacularisation of the disease itself, offering contents mainly referable to risk-taking behaviours such as the obsessive control of food intake, food’s weight or calorie content.