Body Image
Let's Talk Social Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders
An interview with body image expert, Dr. Charlotte Markey, about social media.
Posted September 10, 2024 Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Key points
- Social media is not at fault for all of the maladaptive eating out there, but could contribute to some.
- Teen and early adult years are particularly vulnerable periods for developing mental health issues.
- Parents may need to help their kids make beneficial choices when it comes to social media use.
In this interview, I asked Charlotte Markey, Ph.D., a body image expert and fellow Psychology Today blogger ("Smart People Don't Diet"), about the following timely topics:
- The role that social media plays in eating disorders
- The connections between social media use, body image, and eating disorders
- Why it’s important to separate teens from adults in the research
- What all parents need to know about social media
- What we all can do about this “normal” part of life
Markey is a professor of psychology and director of the health sciences center at Rutgers University, where she teaches courses on the psychology of eating. Her books include Adultish: The Body Image Book for Life (2024); Being You: The Body Image Book for Boys (2022), which is the companion book to The Body Image Book for Girls: Love Yourself and Grow Up Fearless (2020); Body Positive (2018); and Smart People Don’t Diet (2014).
What do we know about the role that social media plays in eating disorders?
Charlotte Markey: There are a few things I want to mention about how research is conducted before jumping in to answer the question. First, in order to know if social media caused eating disorders, we’d really need to do studies that followed people across several years and showed that the people who used more social media were more likely to develop eating disorders later.
This sort of research is very rarely done because it takes years to do (tricky when social media platforms change every few months), costs a lot of money, and would require hundreds of people to agree to participate in the research across years. Even then, this sort of research design would be considered a weak indicator of a causal relation between social media and eating disorders. A stronger design would require researchers to experimentally manipulate who uses social media (or not) and see who develops an eating disorder. This is nearly impossible to do.
So, what most of the research looking at social media and eating disorders does is survey people about their social media use and their eating habits, seeing if there seems to be a correlation or association between the two. These studies tend to find a small but significant link between social media use and disordered eating and eating disorders.1 In other words, social media definitely can’t account for the development of all maladaptive eating, but it may be a contributor for some.
Can you please address the connections between social media use, body image, and eating disorders?
C.M.: One recent review2 that examined social media use, body image, and eating disorders among teens and adults found associations among social media use, body image concerns, and eating disorders. Social media use was found to be detrimental because it led people to compare themselves to what they viewed on social media, to internalize a thin/fit appearance ideal, and to engage in self-objectification. People who were more social media literate and reported more body appreciation seemed to be less at risk of experiencing negative consequences of social media use. Women and people who were already concerned with their body image were more likely to have their social media use contribute to disordered eating.
In other research I’ve conducted,3 I’ve found that what people are doing on social media platforms is important. If people use social media as a communication tool, it’s much less apt to affect their body image and eating behaviors than if they use social media to follow fitness or beauty influencers.
It seems that research on social media and eating disorders often focuses on teens. Can you explain why it’s important to separate teens from adults?
C.M.: There is research that suggests that younger people are more vulnerable to negative mental health consequences of social media than older people. This is true even among teens; younger teens seem more vulnerable than older teens. It’s likely that life experience and cognitive development allow older people to be more discerning and evaluative about what they see and read on social media.
We also know from decades of research that the teen and early adult years are a vulnerable period in terms of the development of mental health problems, including eating disorders. This combination has the potential to be really problematic, which is why there’s been a lot of focus on teens.
As a parent of teens, please share what you feel that all parents need to know about social media.
C.M.: Parents need to appreciate that they can’t just leave kids on their own to manage social media. I think we know too much now about social media being a risk factor for mental health problems to leave kids to their own devices (literally!).
Parents should help kids learn to spend some time away from phones and social media each day by talking through family rules like no phones at dinner, in the car, or in bed at night. Parents should talk to kids about media literacy and authenticity (or lack of) in how people present themselves on social media platforms. Parents could try to learn more about their kids’ social media use by asking kids to show them their newsfeeds and talking with them about the information they see in these spaces.
Perhaps most importantly, we know that social media is detrimental because people tend to compare themselves to what they see on these platforms, but what we all see is often very far from our realities. Celebrities, influencers, and advertisements (and often the difference between these things is really unclear) present people looking their best and living their best lives. Then this content is edited and stylized to be even more idealized.
Comparisons to this sort of content have a negative effect on mental health. So kids need to learn to follow fewer of these folks. Also, they need to be careful about making comparisons to people who have their own personal trainers, photographers, and photo editors.
What can we all do about this “normal” part of life that carries risks?
C.M.: Some scholars have started to talk about social media as a health risk like other health risks such as drinking alcohol. It may seem like a dramatic analogy, but I think it has some merit.
Many adults can safely drink alcohol in moderation (1-2 drinks a day, not necessarily every day). There are laws prohibiting young people from drinking alcohol to protect their growing bodies and brains and because we know that they may not drink responsibly. Similarly, social media is enticing and enjoyable, but best in moderation. And, when it comes to kids, some laws (or at least family rules) should help young people to make good choices about social media use. Otherwise, they may not make them on their own.
Bottom line
Markey reminds us that "social media allows people to learn new things and connect with others; it’s not all bad!”
With all its risks and benefits, social media is here to stay. Social media literacy, family rules, and moderation may be the keys to effectively managing your and your kids' social media use.
References
1. Wilksch, S. M., O'Shea, A., Ho, P., Byrne, S., & Wade, T. D. (2020). The relationship between social media use and disordered eating in young adolescents. The International Journal of Eating Disorders, 53(1), 96–106. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.23198
2. Dane, A., & Bhatia, K. (2023). The social media diet: A scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image and eating disorders amongst young people. PLOS Global Public Health, 3(3), e0001091. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001091
3. Markey, C. H., August, K. J., Gillen, M. M., & Rosenbaum, D. L. (2024). An examination of youths’ social media use and body image: Considering TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000420