Blog Post 2: Blogging as connected writing… Social Media impact on Eating Disorders

TW: ED

We all know how toxic social media can be, but do we know its impact on eating disorders? Social media has influenced young people to start diets and exercise at a very young age (most common is 11 or 12). What’s worse is that there are influencers/celebs who promote eating disorders, bulimia & anorexia. Social media in general plays a huge role, people can be mean and comment on nasty stuff about someone’s appearance, some are also pro-anorexia and share everything online, and this can be especially triggering to someone who is already struggling with body dysmorphia and eating disorders. The sad thing is that (this content ED’s) can just pop up on someone’s feed page, even if they didn’t search for it. So, you are being shown the content, without consent. Social media can be very fat-phobic, I’ve come across many articles and videos of random people criticizing/harassing someone because of their weight. Social media has created a “dream body standard”- and this is very unhealthy because it will lead people into believing this body type is the only one accepted. Thousands of influencers and celebrities will share their eating habits with the world, and sell this fake idea that ‘if you eat like me, you can look like me’. What does this lead to? An eating disorder. This has been an issue since social media was created, and back then I believe it was much worse, because people would get away with posting triggering pictures and today you have platforms like TikTok & Instagram that try to monitor their content to make it a safe space. To summarize, social media has a huge impact on eating disorders, it puts pressure on people to look and eat a certain way, will suggest triggering photos, and open the door to criticism and hate from strangers. The question society should be asking today is “How do we solve social media’s eating disorder problem?”. There has to be an answer, do we ban every eating and body image discussion? I’m a part of Gen-Z, and I’m confident my generation has been affected by this. If social media doesn’t fix up, the younger generation that already has access to the internet (at a younger age than I did) can be exposed to this toxicity of social media & eating disorders. 

The connection between my post and these two links below is that social media has an impact on eating disorders, and it will lead to individuals suffering mentally and physically. 

• Social Media Effects on Eating Disorders | Social Media Victims Law Center

• Eating Disorders and Social Media Prove Difficult to Untangle – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
• Does Social Media Drive Eating Disorders? – Therapy Group of NYC (nyctherapy.com)