Press
If you scroll through Instagram or TikTok, you see them everywhere: pictures of fit influencers with not an ounce of fat on their bodies. This can trigger eating disorders – especially in a group of people.
On social media, people are surrounded by images. Pictures of the upper body during fitness training. Pictures from the beach vacation in the new bikini. Images of healthy food – hashtag #healthylife. The motto on Instagram, TikTok & Co.: Being slim is in. There are always counter-models that oppose the slimness craze. Overall, however, a body image reigns on social media that many cannot achieve in reality. That can lead to problems. Especially among young users.
As current surveys show, the use of social media often causes young people to be dissatisfied with their own body image. It also increases the risk of developing problematic eating habits. Katrin Giel from the University of Tübingen explained the connection between social media and body image on the sidelines of a press conference at the German Congress for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy.
How TikTok, Instagram & Co. influence eating behavior
According to Giel, the research is clear: those who use social media long and intensively are more dissatisfied with their body image and more susceptible to eating disorders. Young girls and women are particularly affected. It will be particularly dangerous for active users who post regularly: “Users who participate in a community themselves and for whom feedback such as likes are particularly important are at particular risk,” says Giel. Starving for more likes.
Longitudinal data from numerous studies have shown that longer and more intensive use of social media is associated with risk factors for the development of eating disorders in young users. This is primarily done via “platforms with strong imagery”, such as TikTok or Instagram. “They are predestined to convey certain body ideals.”
Starving for more likes: “I’m only valuable when I’m thin”
Young people in particular in their discovery phase would strive for a body ideal in order to fit in. “In this area of self-optimization, young people put themselves under a lot of pressure,” says Giel, describing how young people would change their eating behavior as a result. True to the motto “I am only valuable when I am thin,” as Giel said.
Eating disorders develop in adolescence. The three most relevant phenomena are anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorder (“bulima nervosa”) and binge eating disorder with regular eating attacks. “These are serious mental illnesses that require psychotherapy,” says Giel. Personality traits such as low self-esteem, perfectionism and social anxiety in combination with biological and social factors contribute to its development. “The latter also includes social media,” says Giel.
Avoiding social media can reduce eating disorder symptoms
But Giel also says: “Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses, the emergence of which can be traced back to various factors.” It would therefore be very simplistic to blame social media alone. However, Instagram or TikTok could promote eating disorders – and avoiding social media could therefore have a healing effect, as the University of Tübingen reports in a current pilot study. “If students avoid social media, eating disorder symptoms are significantly reduced,” says Giel.
New study: media addiction has almost doubled since 2019
Another new study on social media usage behavior was also published this week. According to Survey by the health insurance company DAK-Gesundheit Digital media addiction among children and young people has almost doubled since 2019. Six percent of ten to 17-year-olds – around 360,000 – currently meet the criteria for addictive behavior when using social media.
The proportion of children and young people with a social media addiction almost doubled during and after the pandemic from 3.2 to 6.1 percent. In addition, at 24.5 percent, one in four children uses social media in a risky way. That's a total of 1.3 million girls and boys and three times as many as four years ago, when this proportion was 8.2 percent.
According to the study, children and young people spend an average of 150 minutes on social networks on a normal weekday. In 2019 it was 123 minutes. At the weekend it is even more than three and a half hours at 224 minutes, after 191 minutes in 2019. Research into eating disorders can be based on such surveys, because the study also made other negative effects of social media clear. As the study shows, girls and boys with problematic social media use report more depressive symptoms, more anxiety and a higher level of stress than inconspicuous users.
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