The rise in eating disorders, a dangerous mental health condition with high mortality and morbidity, has been linked to the proliferation of idealized body images on social media. However, the link between social media and eating disorders is far more complex. We argue that social media platforms create a feedback loop that amplifies the growth of content and communities that promote eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. Specifically, social media platforms make it easy for vulnerable individuals to find and connect to like-minded others, while group dynamic processes encourage them to stay engaged within communities that promote and glorify harmful behaviors linked to eating disorders. We characterize this dynamic empirically through a combination of network and language analysis. We describe a novel framework that leverages large language models to analyze the discourse within online communities and probe their attitudes on topics related to eating disorders to identify potentially harmful content. Our work emphasizes the need for better social media moderation to disrupt harmful feedback loops and protect vulnerable individuals.

社交媒体与饮食失调之间存在复杂的联系，社交媒体平台通过放大宣传和推动饮食失调行为的内容和社区，进一步加剧了饮食失调的问题。本研究通过网络和语言分析，描述了利用大型语言模型分析在线社区中的言论，探索与饮食失调相关话题上的态度，以识别潜在有害内容的新框架，并强调需要更好的社交媒体管理来阻断有害反馈循环并保护弱势群体。

使用大型语言模型表征在线饮食失调社群