Gendered evaluations of anorexia nervosa and binge-eating disorder in Bilibili danmu comments

This study examines how viewers evaluate women with anorexia nervosa (AN) and binge-eating disorder (BED) through danmu, comments displayed over videos on Bilibili, a Chinese video-sharing platform. Using critical discourse analysis informed by feminist poststructuralism, it analyzes 400 comments randomly sampled from four videos, two concerning each disorder. In this dataset, AN is often evaluated through beauty, thinness, care, and recovery, whereas BED is more frequently framed through excess, self-control, about wealth and productivity, and doubts about illness legitimacy. Supportive comments can also reinforce expectations about women’s bodies, while exchanges between viewers challengeesthetic praise and coercive advice. The analysis shows how danmu makes these evaluations collectively visible and open to negotiation. It highlights how distinct gendered expectations shape everyday understandings of eating disorders, with stigma, care, and correction coexisting within the same online setting.