Social Media, Body Dissatisfaction, and Disordered Eating

Body image plays a vital role in adolescents' well-being and development. However, the rapid and significant change in body shape during puberty is often associated with various degrees of body dissatisfaction.

The research has shown that adolescents with high body dissatisfaction have an increased risk of developing clinical depression, disordered eating, and low self-esteem. Therefore, it is essential to identify factors contributing to body dissatisfaction to develop effective prevention strategies to help adolescents create a positive body image.

Studies on traditional media (i.e., TV and magazines) found that their use is indirectly associated with body dissatisfaction through peer influence. Indeed, teenagers exposed to highly idealized images of physically attractive people via TV and magazines have more frequent conversations about their appearance with their peers and have higher body dissatisfaction. It has been proposed that the ideal bodies seen in the media become personalized when adolescents talk with peers. Consequently, media focused on ideal bodies may increase the frequency of receiving appearance-related feedback from peers.

Social networks have an important effect on adolescents' life and development. It has been documented that 70 percent of European teenagers aged 14 to 17 years use social networking sites, and 40 percent spend more than two hours a day on these sites. YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat are adolescents' most popular online sites.

Personal photographs are important in social networking activities. Since social media contains images, videos, and comments frequently focused on appearance and body shape, their use can increase the frequency of adolescents conversing about their physical appearance and receiving comments about their bodies. Examples include commenting with friends on photos they or others have posted on social networks and exchanging tips on improving their bodies' appearance. In this way, they may contribute to developing body dissatisfaction and disordered eating.

Some data from the research

A review of 20 studies published in 2016 has shown that the use of social networks is associated with body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. Specific social activities, such as viewing and uploading photos and asking for negative feedback, were identified as particularly problematic. A subsequent review of 63 studies in 2019 confirmed the presence of a positive and significant relationship between social media use and body image disturbance.

An Australian study on 996 adolescents (n = 534 girls) found that 75.4 percent of girls and 69.9 percent of boys had at least one account. Instagram was the most common, used by 68.1 percent of girls and 61.7 percent of boys. Facebook was the least used. Girls were likelier to post pictures of people than boys on Instagram and Snapchat. This did not apply to selfies but to photos taken by others of the participant and photographs of friends and celebrities. Moreover, girls were twice as likely as boys to post food photos on Snapchat. The study also suggested that social media, particularly platforms with a strong focus on image posting and viewing, is associated with highly disordered eating attitudes and behaviors in young adolescents.

A Dutch study, which evaluated 604 adolescents (ages 11–18; 50.7 percent female) over 18 months, found that the more frequent use of social networks predicts increased body dissatisfaction and higher peer comments on body image in both males and females. This study suggested that using social networks is not only associated with body dissatisfaction but also probably has a causal role in deteriorating body image. This conclusion has been confirmed by a meta-analysis published in 2021 of 69 studies with experimental or longitudinal evidence, which concluded that social media use has a small, negative correlation with body image longitudinally.

Influence of social media on body dissatisfaction and disordered eating

Two main theories have been used to explain the association between the more frequent social network site use and the development of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating among adolescents.

1. The sociocultural theory (also known as “the tripartite influence model”) proposes that the "sociocultural ideal" defines the beautiful body type. The shape of the ideal body changes over time and culture, but, nowadays, females are thin and toned, and males are muscular. However, in Western countries, the ideal body is so extreme that it is not reachable by most people. When exposed to the ideal body, it is common for people to compare the shape of their body to it, and they usually conclude that their body shape does not meet this ideal. As a result, they may become dissatisfied with their body shape and adopt some dysfunctional behaviors (e.g., dieting, exercising) to approach the socially ideal body.

According to the tripartite influence model, the actual unrealistic ideal body shape of Western societies is promoted by three main channels: peers, parents, and media, including magazines, TV, movies, and, recently, social media. Another channel not considered by the tripartite model is that by some coaches of so-called "lean sports."

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2. The objectification theory proposes that people's bodies are "sexually objectified" in Western culture. For this reason, it reduces people mainly to their body shape and treats them as "objects" for sexual attraction. Consequently, it highlights an observer's perspective on people's bodies and not one that also includes more complex inner aspects such as their personalities. Social media use, which includes seeing photos or videos that others post of themselves on social media, can also highlight this observer's perspective.

What can be done?

The research on how to help people reduce the risk of increased body dissatisfaction and disordered eating with social networks is in its early stage. Some pilot studies have been published. Most were classroom interventions involving adolescents. One challenged social media ideals, others were social media literacy interventions, and one included a brief self-compassion writing task with adult women before exposure to thin-ideal Instagram images. The interventions had some promising results, but their effect was small or null.

An interesting recent study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders tested an intervention for social media and eating disorder risk in young adult university students. The study compared a novel self-guided intervention designed to reduce self-criticism and increase self-compassion with another to help users to curate their social media feed to mitigate adverse impacts on well-being (i.e., using tools on social media to control the types of content one is exposed to so that it is more conducive to well-being).

It is known that self-criticism is associated with negative self-comparison and predicts disordered eating. On the other hand, self-compassion has negative associations with eating disorder symptoms and body image preoccupations. Both interventions had excellent feasibility and acceptability. The self-criticism intervention showed improved body image and reduced disordered eating. In contrast, the social media curation intervention produced similar improvements in appearance comparison at one- and two weeks post-randomization.

While waiting for more robust results and effective strategies from the research, parental involvement in preventing and responding to cyberbullying and in preventing body dissatisfaction and disordered eating cannot be understated. Indeed, parents play a critical role in ensuring their children's responsible, safe, and helpful use of social networks. This involves, among other things, allowing the teen to add one social app when they seem ready according to their personality and maturity level, setting time limits for the use of the social networks, helping them to curate their feed and how to see the content makes feel good, useful, interesting, and in line with their values. Finally, suppose the teens have body image issues. In that case, they should be helped to consider alternatives to social networks that seem more associated with developing body dissatisfaction and disordered eating.