How do Artificial Intelligence chatbots respond to questions from adolescent personas about their eating, body weight, or appearance?

<p dir="ltr">Background: Body image and eating behaviours are common areas of concern for early</p><p dir="ltr">adolescents. Artificial Intelligence (AI) interactions are becoming commonplace, including</p><p dir="ltr">with chatbots that provide human-like communication. Adolescents may prefer using</p><p dir="ltr">chatbots to anonymously ask sensitive questions, rather than approaching trusted adults or</p><p dir="ltr">peers. It is unclear how chatbots answer such questions. We explored how chatbots would</p><p dir="ltr">respond to eating, weight, or appearance-related queries from adolescents.</p><p dir="ltr">Method: Ten fictitious adolescent personas and scripts were created to facilitate</p><p dir="ltr">conversations with ChatGPT and Claude.AI. Personas asked questions about eating, body</p><p dir="ltr">weight and/or appearance, presenting as “curious”, “worried”, or “having a potential eating</p><p dir="ltr">disorder”. Conversation outputs were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to explore</p><p dir="ltr">the content of chatbot responses.</p><p dir="ltr">Results: Five themes were identified: 1) Live a “healthy” adolescent lifestyle; 2) Eat</p><p dir="ltr">“healthily”; 3) Promoting regular physical activity; 4) Seek support; 5) Focus on you. Advice</p><p dir="ltr">was often framed within societal ideals relating to eating, body weight and/or appearance.</p><p dir="ltr">Chatbots signposted to trusted adults and healthcare professionals for support, but not to</p><p dir="ltr">regulated resources (e.g., NHS).</p><p dir="ltr">Conclusions: Framings around eating, weight and/or appearance may be problematic for</p><p dir="ltr">adolescents with eating disorder symptomatology. A lack of prompting for further</p><p dir="ltr">information or signposting to regulated support means vulnerable adolescents may receive</p><p dir="ltr">unhelpful information or not reach adequate support. Understanding how AI could be</p><p dir="ltr">supportive and/or unhelpful to adolescent users presenting with eating, body or appearance-</p><p dir="ltr">related concerns is important. Findings can inform policy regulating AI chatbots’</p><p dir="ltr">communications with adolescents.</p>