Written By: Rian Chase
Edited By: Vanshi Kumar
My New Year’s Resolution was to spend less time on social media in 2024. Although I have to admit, this isn’t going as well as planned. I just can’t pull myself away from it. I love to watch celebrity news and see my friend’s photo dumps. It’s addicting to watch influencers and beauty gurus post their workout routines and eating habits and take photos and videos with a “perfect” body and shining skin. I often fail to recognize how much this affects my image of my own body. It turns out that this is a very common problem for my peers as well.
Social media can make the standards we set for ourselves extremely unrealistic, which can be dangerous for our health. The minimum age allowed to create accounts on various popular social media platforms, such as TikTok and Snapchat, is 13 years old, and many create accounts even before that age. Most eating disorder trends have been observed in people 13 years or younger. At this age, and even beyond it, youth is a very impressional time in our lives. And when many of us look at social media, the shining faces and seemingly “perfect” body shapes influence how we see ourselves. and this is often apparent in their eating habits.
There is a lot of evidence pointing to exposure to social media and eating disorders, especially in young girls. Many are worried about how they may appear online, which creates much overthinking about their eating habits. This young audience quickly becomes worried about their weight, body shape, and calorie intake. In a survey, 52% of teen girls and 45% of teen boys reported skipping meals because of this uneasiness.
This survey proved, for many, what had already been known by young social media users all over the world: that the standards set by social media influence how its audience views themselves. Studies have shown that in the past 20 years, as TV, social media, magazines, and pop culture have become a part of our everyday lives, they’ve significantly influenced the concept of a “perfect” or “ideal” body shape.
Over the years, the idea of the “perfect” body was slim and lean. According to a study done by Katzmaryk and Davis, over 20 years, from 1978-98, 70% of the women pictured in Playboy magazine were severely underweight. From 1978 to today, many naturally wanted and continue to want to conform to society’s perfection. In ann interview between Ryan Seacrest and Kim Kardashian, a a model and beauty queen admired by many. Kim revealed that she sprays cleaning chemicals, such as Windex, on her food to stop her from eating it. As extreme as this may sound, similar behaviors spread across platforms like TikTok and Instagram today, such as intense fasting and workout routines.
Social media can easily give the impression that our beauty and body shape are the things that give us value as people and can often cause users to compare themselves to others, which can make us look down on ourselves even more.
People who have experienced eating disorders in the past are often triggered by posts that promote restricted eating and weight loss tips, and this can also create habits of disordered eating in those who had no experience prior. Presence on social media can cause a distorted image of a person’s own body and cause them to adopt the extreme weight loss behaviors that they learn from it.
In conclusion, social media is a powerful thing. It can be used to spread messages to thousands all across the world, and has the power to change how we act and think. If there’s one thing I want to be a takeaway from this article, it’s that we should use social media to spread positivity, because we never truly know the affect that negativity can have on others.
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