Fig. 4

a and b Dimensions of response to a) fiction about eating disorders and b) respondents’ preferred genre of other fiction. These charts indicate how many respondents reported having read the two fiction types (ED fiction 365, other fiction 540), and within that cohort, how many reported experiencing any change on the dimension in question, then how many reported improvement or worsening, and then how many reported minor, moderate, or major improvement or worsening. Each category is subsumed within the previous one: e.g., for ED fiction and diet and exercise habits, 258 of the 365 who had read ED fiction reported experiencing some change, 243 of those 258 reported a worsening, and 59 of the 243 reported major worsening. For readability’s sake, the most striking effects are illustrated here (i.e. major negative responses to ED fiction and moderate positive responses to other fiction). Both analyses included responses from all 885 respondents. Analysis of the responses to other fiction was also performed solely for the subset of respondents who reported having read ED fiction, in case this group also responded differently to other fiction types, but the pattern of responses was not significantly different from those manifested by the wider group, shown here