'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication
This article explores the communicative choices of adolescents seeking advice from an internet-based health forum run by medical professionals. Techniques from the disciplines of sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics are integrated to examine the strategies used in adolescents’ health questions. W...
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| Format: | Article |
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Equinox Publishing
2015
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32782/ |
| _version_ | 1848794488025120768 |
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| author | Mullany, Louise Smith, Catherine Harvey, Kevin Adolphs, Svenja |
| author_facet | Mullany, Louise Smith, Catherine Harvey, Kevin Adolphs, Svenja |
| author_sort | Mullany, Louise |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This article explores the communicative choices of adolescents seeking advice from an internet-based health forum run by medical professionals. Techniques from the disciplines of sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics are integrated to examine the strategies used in adolescents’ health questions. We focus on the emergent theme of Weight and Eating, a concern which features prominently in adolescents’ requests to medical practitioners. The majority of advice requests are authored by adolescent girls, with queries peaking at age 12. A combined quantitative and qualitative analysis provides detailed insights into adolescents’ communicative strategies. Examinations of question types, register and a discourse-based analysis draw attention to dominant discourses of the body, including a ‘discourse of slenderness’ and a ‘discourse of normality’, which exercise negative influences on adolescents’ dietary behaviours. The findings are of applied linguistic relevance to health practitioners and educators as they provide them with access to adolescents’ health queries in their own language. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:16:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-32782 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:16:59Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Equinox Publishing |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-327822020-05-04T17:25:20Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32782/ 'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication Mullany, Louise Smith, Catherine Harvey, Kevin Adolphs, Svenja This article explores the communicative choices of adolescents seeking advice from an internet-based health forum run by medical professionals. Techniques from the disciplines of sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics are integrated to examine the strategies used in adolescents’ health questions. We focus on the emergent theme of Weight and Eating, a concern which features prominently in adolescents’ requests to medical practitioners. The majority of advice requests are authored by adolescent girls, with queries peaking at age 12. A combined quantitative and qualitative analysis provides detailed insights into adolescents’ communicative strategies. Examinations of question types, register and a discourse-based analysis draw attention to dominant discourses of the body, including a ‘discourse of slenderness’ and a ‘discourse of normality’, which exercise negative influences on adolescents’ dietary behaviours. The findings are of applied linguistic relevance to health practitioners and educators as they provide them with access to adolescents’ health queries in their own language. Equinox Publishing 2015-12-31 Article PeerReviewed Mullany, Louise, Smith, Catherine, Harvey, Kevin and Adolphs, Svenja (2015) 'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication. Communication and Medicine, 12 (2-3). pp. 211-223. ISSN 1613-3625 Corpus linguistics Discourses of the body Eating disorders Electronic discourse Sociolinguistics https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/CAM/article/view/16692 doi:10.1558/cam.16692 doi:10.1558/cam.16692 |
| spellingShingle | Corpus linguistics Discourses of the body Eating disorders Electronic discourse Sociolinguistics Mullany, Louise Smith, Catherine Harvey, Kevin Adolphs, Svenja 'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication |
| title | 'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication |
| title_full | 'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication |
| title_fullStr | 'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication |
| title_full_unstemmed | 'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication |
| title_short | 'Am I anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication |
| title_sort | 'am i anorexic?': weight, eating and discourses of the body in online adolescent health communication |
| topic | Corpus linguistics Discourses of the body Eating disorders Electronic discourse Sociolinguistics |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32782/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32782/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32782/ |