This type of account offers the combination of a support system and a degree of anonymity. Many users don’t create their recovery account in their full name, and others never include photos of their faces. Erzsie Nagy, a student at Middlebury College, admits that she was very embarrassed when people from her personal life first discovered her recovery account, though she later grew more comfortable with the idea. The vast network of other recovery accounts forges a supportive digital community for those pursuing health—one that, for some, becomes a group of real-world friends.

“I have met some of the people I’d consider my best friends through this account,” says Malia Budd, a student at Duke University who maintains a recovery Instagram and has wrestled with anorexia and other disordered eating behaviors for about five years. (She’s been in recovery for about a year.) “It’s kind of a crazy thing to tell people you met through your Instagram, but people post such personal things that it’s easier to get to know someone on such a different level,” she says. She considered attending an in-person support group at her college, but never attended because the available spaces filled up. She’s comfortable in the Instagram recovery community because of the layer of separation it offers from her everyday life: “It’s harder to open up to someone if you know you’re going to see them in different environments every day.”

But not all of these recovery accounts look alike, and some still show an unhealthy preoccupation with food and body image. Many users will document every meal and snack, others include calorie counts, and some will share figures such as their lowest weight or “days binge/purge free.”

“Part of an eating disorder is an obsessive quality around food intake and exercise,” says Rachel Benson Monroe, the clinical-programs coordinator at the Multi-Service Eating Disorder Association in Newton, Massachusetts. “Anyone who is spending an inordinate amount of time talking about or posting about what their food intake is—that’s gonna be a little bit of a red flag.”

As an image-based platform, Instagram lends itself to tendencies often associated with eating disorders, such as an obsession with physical appearance and constant comparisons to others’ bodies and diets. “Certainly we know that social media doesn’t cause eating disorders,” says Claire Mysko, the director of programs at the National Eating Disorder Association. “But it can amplify a lot of the thoughts and behaviors associated with one.”

Because these accounts aim to promote recovery, it stands to reason that the users who maintain them may not have yet freed themselves of all the rules and self-regulation that come along with an eating disorder. Others looking at their posts may feel the line blurring between the promotion of healthy habits and a continued preoccupation with diet and exercise. Benson worries that many individuals recovering from eating disorders might have a hard time parsing these conflicting themes when looking at other recovery accounts.