item.page.files
item.page.type
item.page.type.articleitem.page.version
item.page.version.acceptedversionitem.page.date
item.page.ccrights.no-rights
item.page.use_identifier: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/154831
"I Am a Waste of Breath, of Space, of Time": Metaphors of Self in a Pro-Anorexia Group
item.page.journal-title
relationships.isAuthorOf
relationships.isAdvisorOf
item.page.journal-issn
item.page.volume-title
item.page.relation.uri
item.page.abstract
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.
item.page.subject.classification
item.page.subject.other
item.page.citation
citation-export.title
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: 28 of September of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/154831