The Impact of Social Media on Eating Behaviors and Body Image
“Influencers.” Celebrity diets and product endorsements. “What I eat in a day.” Selfies heavily altered with filters.
These are just a few of the many things on social media that have a deleterious effect on the physical and mental health of social media users. There’s no doubt that social media has transformed the way we connect with, and relate to, other human beings. While social media apps allow us to maintain connections with others and entertain us, there are downsides to the abundant proliferation of images, words, ideas, advice, etc. This is especially true for individuals who struggle with their relationship to food and with body image issues.
Highly visual social media platforms (e.g., Instagram and TikTok) and app designs that encourage (and “reward”) prolonged engagement with the content increase the risk for disordered eating and negative body image. In this post, I’ll share some features of social media platforms and usage that increase the risk of body image issues and disordered eating, along with tips to help you create a healthier approach to social media use.
Visibility & Comparison
It’s no secret that a Eurocentric thin ideal has permeated popular media and health care spaces for many decades. The rapid growth of in-hand technologies, like smartphones with cameras, has led many people to take an observer’s perspective of their body (self-objectification). This, in turn, has led to people placing a greater degree of their value and self-worth on their physical appearance. Further, the belief that attractiveness is equated with value is often reinforced within families, relationships, and popular media. All of this intensifies the pressure to meet external standards for attractiveness.
Visual social media apps where picture posting is encouraged has increased the pressure people feel to be “camera ready” at all times. The sheer volume of content in these social media spaces leads to social comparison, or how we estimate our social status related to others. In terms of social comparison, we make both upward and downward comparisons relative to our own perceived status. If we already feel a sense of pressure to meet the dominant external standard for attractiveness, it makes sense that the more images we see, the more likely we are to compare ourselves to others. While comparison is naturally part of being human, it becomes problematic when these comparisons lead to feelings of appearance-related anxiety and shame.
The visual nature of social media can strongly reinforce the Eurocentric thin ideal. The pressure to conform to this ideal can increase body surveillance, body shame, depressive symptoms, and disordered eating behaviors. It’s easy to get pulled into the messages that influencers, celebrities, family, peers, and friends share about the way they eat and how they look (among many other things). It’s important to note that many people’s comparison targets are highly edited and filtered images that don’t represent reality (in most cases). Not only are we comparing ourselves to others, now we’re comparing ourselves to images that aren’t “real.” Attempting to change our body by mimicking another person’s eating and movement patterns can sharply increase disordered thoughts and behaviors. This is extremely concerning!
Unique Social Media Features
I’m certainly not alone in my concern about how social media has changed the way we interact with other humans. Nesi and colleagues (2018) proposed the Transformation Framework, which presented seven distinct factors that impact how someone experiences social media. While Nesi and colleagues were focused on adolescent social media users, these factors impact any social media user regardless of age.
Here is a brief summary of the seven factors from the Transformation Framework and how they impact our social media experience:
“Visualness”: As discussed above, the visual nature of social media increases the pressure to post and interact with visual media of all kinds. This has led to the normalization of “selfie culture”, photo editing, filtering, and social comparison.
Availability: Social media is readily available to users 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The way the apps are designed make it easy to access, view, and share content. The endless amount of content encourages us to get sucked into a time warp by scrolling through posts and videos. For many people, scrolling through social media is a habitual way to pass the time and often provides distraction from work/school/personal issues, etc.
Publicness: Social media has changed what, and how much, information we share publicly. More often than not it’s a “given” that someone has some kind of social media presence. If we have a social media presence it’s likely that are encouraged or expected to make aspects of ourselves and our lives public, especially if we see other people modeling this behavior. It’s not uncommon for people who grew up with social media to walk into a room and think that everyone is looking at them (there’s even a phrase for this- “imaginary audience syndrome”). This is a testament to the power and influence that social media has had on user’s lives.
Quantifiability: Likes, shares, saves. These are quantifiable social metrics that can have a significant impact on how someone feels about themselves after posting social media content. This is also an area where comparison can come up (e.g., “why don’t I get as many likes as so and so”). Conflating self-worth with social media metrics can have a negative impact on someone’s health and well-being. Even more, public comments (especially negative ones) can have real-life ramifications and consequences.
Permanence of content: Content that is posted and shared on social media lives forever in the apps, “cloud”, or server (e.g., even if deleted from a feed, content can exist elsewhere, be reposted, or be shared if someone saves it). Revisiting permanent content and metrics increases the likelihood of ruminating over content, comments, and metrics (especially negative comments) and can serve as a way of comparing oneself over time.
Asynchronicity: Social media apps mostly operate in an asynchronous manner where users interact with other people through content, rather than interpersonal cues. It’s different than having a conversation with someone in real time where you’re receiving immediate feedback, body language cues, vocal cues, etc. Non-immediate feedback, while beneficial in certain circumstances (e.g., not writing an email when distressed), can feel disorienting on social media apps. Asynchronous systems also give people time to carefully craft and curate both content and responses, which has an impact on how someone experiences social media content.
Algorithms: Finally, it’s important to note that our experience on social media is heavily influenced by external design features like algorithms. Every time we use a social media app, we’re “teaching” the app (in a sense) what topics interest or disinterest us, what types of accounts we’re likely to interact with, and so on. What we see in our social media feed is determined by algorithms that prompt us with suggested content based on our use.
Relating this back to eating behaviors and body image, let’s look at an example of how all seven factors influence someone’s experience on social media.
“Ruth” (she/her), a 41-year-old, is currently in outpatient treatment for anorexia nervosa. She has Instagram and TikTok accounts that she has accesses numerous times a day, for a total use of about 2-3 hours a day (visualness and availability). Ruth follows eating disorder recovery/body acceptance accounts, home decor accounts, travel-related accounts, accounts from family and friends, and accounts from her favorite celebrities/musicians (algorithms).
Ruth is more of a passive user, meaning that she scrolls more than she posts content. She infrequently posts selfies from vacations and other events (publicness). She often finds herself scrolling back through pictures on her own account to see if she can notice differences in her appearance over time (permanence). Ruth has noticed that she has been fixated on the number of likes she’s received on her recent vacation pictures along with comments from friends and family about her appearance (quantifiability).
More recently, Ruth has noticed that she exits social media apps feeling ashamed of how her body looks and anxious about her progress in eating disorder recovery. The more she views content about recovery, what people are eating, and her favorite celebrities, the more of these posts appear in her feed (algorithms). Although she doesn’t send or receive too many DMs on Instagram, she finds that she has become obsessed with how quickly someone responds to her messages if at all (asynchronicity). More often than not, this leaves her feeling anxious and disappointed.
“Ruth’s” story above provides an example of how social media can have a negative effect on health and well-being. In the next section, I’ll discuss a few tips for healthier social media use.
Tips for Healthier Social Media Use
How we use and interact with social media has a direct effect on how we experience social media. While the decision to get off social media completely (or take a break) may be beneficial to some people, this decision may not be feasible or beneficial for others. The answer isn’t always to get off social media. However, we can learn to approach social media differently.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
Tip #1: Recognize your vulnerabilities and the problems you experience on social media. Some things to consider include:
Time spent on social media.
Likelihood of engaging in social comparison.
Degree of comfort in sharing content, especially personal pictures.
Degree of connection with others you feel on social media.
How you feel after using a social media app?
How you feel about social media metrics (likes, saves, shares). What do metrics bring up for you?
Tip #2: Examine your social media use with curiosity. Some things to consider include:
What is the reason (or are the reasons) that you’d like to use social media?
What types of accounts do you currently follow? What topics interest you the most? What topics interest you the least, or are more likely to have a negative impact on your well-being?
Do you engage in passive or active use? Passive use (e.g., scrolling without interacting/engaging) can have more of a negative effect on well-being than active use.
How would you like to use social media to connect with other people?
How much time would you like to spend on social media and how would you like to spend your time on social media (e.g., watching videos, commenting on posts, etc.)?
Tip #3: Curate a more meaningful and values-based experience on social media. Here are some things to consider:
Unfollowing or muting accounts (even family or friends) that aren’t supportive to your overall health and well-being. If a post or video leaves you feeling distressed or uneasy, it’s always okay to unfollow or mute someone so their posts no longer appear in your feed.
Follow accounts that align with your values and interests. The more often you engage with accounts that align with your values, the more likely you will be to see similar posts in your feed. This will “teach” the app what you’re currently interested in.
Use the app design features to your advantage. For instance, you can “turn off” like counts, arrange your feed to only show your favorite accounts, and so on. Many apps have online guides to help you navigate the features of the platform.
Many social media platforms have features like timers which will help you set time limits for how long you’re spending on the app. You can also consider using your phone timer if you find yourself in a social media time warp.
It’s always okay to take a break from using social media apps and from post personal updates/pictures. There’s no law or rule that says you have to have a social media account or that you have to post personal information or pictures!!
I certainly hope that these tips with increase your social media wellness!
Reference:
Nesi, J., Choukas-Bradley, S., & Prinstein, M.J. (2018). Transformation of adolescent and peer relations in the social media context: Part 1-A theoretical framework and application to dyadic peer relationships. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 21(3), 267-294.
Photo by Dole777 (@dole777) via Unsplash