Social media can lead to eating disorders

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

If you are actively communicating on social networks, but you have probably been unhappy with your own photos. And you are not alone. This is quite common, if not normal. The main thing is not to torment yourself with unnecessary criticism.

Experts at the Eating Disorders Center at Shepard Pratt Hospital (USA) conducted a study in which 600 Facebook users aged 16 to 40 voluntarily participated. As it turned out, more than half of the volunteers, looking at their pictures, are not at all delighted.

Namely, 51% of respondents showed that viewing their own photographs causes them concern about the shape and weight of their bodies. The same number of respondents confirmed that they often compare their lives and the lives of their friends, regularly reading their status updates and looking at their photos.

Last year, Israeli scientists found a link between Facebook interactions and eating disorders in young girls.

About a third of the respondents admitted that when comparing their photos and photos of friends, they feel rather upset, and 37% of respondents know exactly which parts of their own body they do not like the most. 17% said that they have bouts of binge eating, and every eighth admitted that he had eating disorders, another 8% believe that they can happen, writes Infox.ru.

In principle, healthy self-criticism has never harmed anyone. But here it is important not to overdo it. Ask yourself: will you really be happy by losing 5 kilograms or dyed blonde like one of your friends?

“Facebook gives people the desire and energy to criticize their own bodies, as well as the desire to look like someone else. In our time of modern technology and constant access to the Internet, people are increasingly negative about their own image, which leads to low self-esteem and ultimately can lead to eating disorders,”- sums up the results obtained by Dr. Harry Brandt (Harry Brandt).