Authors: Stempfer, N. & Wolf, M.
Centre: University Hospital Heidelberg

Pro-Anorexia (Pro-Ana) and Pro-Bulimia (Pro-Mia) websites and/or forums are deemed to be dangerous for healthy adolescents by public and media increasingly. However only a few studies have investigated these forms of online media so far. The opinions of researchers range from having a very severe influence to being an effective way of giving support to eating disordered women. All studies done so far did not aim at identifying the core "infectious" part of the websites. The language as well as the present pictures can be considered as influencing components. In our study we will focus on the texts and describe the characteristics of language and communication used at Pro-Eating Disorder (Pro-ED) websites. Pro-Recovery homepages will serve as controls.