"You know, who's the thinnest?": Combating surveillance and creating safety in coping with eating disorders online

Online support groups have become highly attractive to seekers of health ad vice. These sites offer rich online support and information, which may be e njoyed in a nonthreatening environment. The "bodiless" nature of online sup port groups helps ensure participants' sense of safety, because judgments r elating to physical appearances are largely decreased. This article examine s interaction in an online eating disorder support group, where such safety cannot be assumed. Because women with anorexia and bulimia routinely discu ss problems relating to appearances (size and weight), the risk of monitori ng and negatively evaluating oneself and others jeopardizes the safety of i nteraction in this online context. In a microlevel discourse analysis of th ree exchanges, the linguistic structure and joint nature of creating a safe communicative context is traced, as it unfolds amid solving a problem conc erning physical appearances. The aim is to illuminate the therapeutic poten tial of online forums for women with eating disorders, namely, as safe spac es for coping with eating disorder-related problems. This study calls for i ncreased inquiry of online forums as viable alternatives to face-to-face ea ting disorder support groups, as anorexia and bulimia continue to prolifera te in the United States.