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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/154831
"I Am a Waste of Breath, of Space, of Time": Metaphors of Self in a Pro-Anorexia Group
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According to recent research on eating disorders, heavy users of pro-anorexia (pro-ana) sites show higher levels of disordered eating and more severe impairment of quality of life than non-heavy users. A better understanding of how pro-ana members self-present in the virtual world could shed some light on these offline behaviors. Through discourse analysis, I examined the metaphors the members of a pro-ana group invoked in their personal profiles on a popular social networking site, to talk about the self. I applied the Metaphor Identification Procedure to 757 text profiles. I identified four key metaphorical constructions in pro-ana members' self-descriptions: self as space, self as weight, perfecting the self, and the social self. These four main metaphors represented discourse strategies, both to create a collective pro-ana identity and to enact an individual identity as pro-ana. In this article, I discuss the implications of these findings for the treatment of eating disorders.
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FIGUERAS, Carolina. "I Am a Waste of Breath, of Space, of Time": Metaphors of Self in a Pro-Anorexia Group. Qualitative Health Research. 2014. ISSN 1049-7323. [consulted: 17 of June of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/154831