How social media misinformation
is leading to eating disorders in young people.
Trigger warning
This paper contains detailed information about eating disorders and symptoms.
Abstract
I chose the stream of social media and communication as it’s where I’m most interested, especially after reading further into the power of virtual communities. I decided to dive further into how social media provides a platform to spread misinformation about diets resulting in eating disorders. As someone who follows and keeps up with the health side of social media, it’s incredibly frustrating and heartbreaking how this information impacts people and gives the whole health world bad credit. This is not the first time as a society we are seeing misinformation, especially in dieting culture. It is something that varies so much from person to person and there are so many negative ways of going about it. Although I do see that social media enhances the ability for misinformation to reach more people and become a more overwhelming and impactful situation.
Social media plays a significant role in young people’s everyday life (Papacharissi, 2010) and in the spread of misinformation on diets, which plays a part in the rise of youth eating disorders. This is due to many factors the main one’s being how platforms, algorithms and monitoring systems help allow the spread of this misinformation (Wen-Ying et al., 2018). This can be seen through harmful hashtags. How social media promotion of these harmful ads and the minimal effort they put in to assist with the monitoring of this fake news is perpetuating the problem. This can be seen by the consistent promotion on Instagram of tea detoxes. (Kendra et, al., 2019) Another contributing factor is, how trusting people are of social media platforms and the information shared on them. The main cause of this would be the types of relationships that are built over the internet whether it’s influencers or online communities; these relationships are perceived as real and feel as such. This is something that is discussed in the book “A Networked self”, detailing how the internet allows for the possibility of online connections. (Papacharissi, 2010) All of this can lead to eating disorders, due to the mental impact these factors can have on a user. The main eating disorders that are a result of social media misinformation would be anorexia, binge eating and bulimia. (Villanueva, 2021) These eating disorders can result in serious illness or death and shows the impact that the spreading of health misinformation on social media platforms has.
Misinformation and diet culture are not new to the internet space. It first started to peak in Tumbler’s prime (Atherton, 2021). When the hashtags like “thinspo”, “pro-ana” and “bonspiration” started to grow, these hashtags all promote the idealisation of being abnormally skinny, and being skinny is required to be “perfect” (Talbot et al., 2017). Pro-ana stands for pro-anorexia and was a community centred around young females encouraging each other to starve and giving “advice” to help subdue the feeling of hunger. (Talbot, Gavin, Steen, Morey, 2017) The sense of community is formulated around the fact they all have a similar interest, helping create a sense of purpose within the virtual community. (Papacharissi, 2010) This operated around the basis of sharing and encouragement, often in the form of photos or tips, these were mainly shared through Tumbler and Instagram with a more recent appearance on TikTok. (Talbot, Gavin, Steen, Morey, 2017) Further emphasises the theory of how virtual communities are centred around sense of purpose. (Papacharissi, 2010) Whilst these groups aren’t as direct today due to the awareness and the known dangers of these groups, social media platforms have blocked these hashtags in their attempt to “protect young people”. Though this is a great effort from these platforms, not enough has been done to block these communities especially as they spread to Instagram and TikTok. (Talbot, Gavin, Steen, Morey, 2017) In recent research, you can see Instagram’s new attempt to stop this but unfortunately, these communities that encourage this behaviour still lie under the surface and “skinny inspo” accounts still exist today.
Whilst skinny teas and detoxes have had their true share of highlights over the years, they are still heavily promoted, shared, and encouraged on social media. (Kendra et, al., 2019) Most of us can think back to the early days of Instagram and remember anyone who had a big following like Kim Kardashian, promoting these “skinny teas” that will give you a flat belly. Whilst most of them didn’t work, tea detoxes and lots of skinny teas encourage the consumer to have nothing else but glasses of tea, and food was seen as the enemy. (Kendra et, al., 2019) Over time more awareness and anger were brought to this issue with many influencers and celebrities no longer endorsing these teas due to the reaction they received from their audience. Many think this had ended, although there is a whole community still heavily promoting this business. Here is where you can see money coming before morals. (Kendra et, al., 2019) Whilst it doesn’t take much common sense in the first place to know that these celebrities were promoting a harmful product. After more awareness and pressure inflicted upon these celebrities, some still kept with the promotion due to the money they can earn. Many companies that work in this industry use it as a quick and effective money grab, Instagram hasn’t done much in the way of preventing or even assisting with this. (Kendra et, al., 2019) Due to so many small companies using the “skinny tea” industry as money grabs, they often pay Instagram for promoted ads. Instagram does not actively discourage this misinformation effectively.
Figure 1. (Gillie, 2021)
In 2020 platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok truly showed the potential control over what information their users are exposed to concerning covid-19 management. Due to the pandemic being such a large impacting issue all platforms had to attempt to ensure that they weren’t responsible for misinformation about the virus. Social networks created pop-ups that showed when someone mentioned or had typed covid or any relating word. This demonstrated that actions are being done to monitor misinformation on social media.
Figure 2. (Facebook, 2012)
Whilst this is similar to the attempt at managing searches on eating disorders, much misinformation is still spread in the health community. An example would be the “skinny teas” and the underlying “skinny” community. A more dangerous example would include calorie analysis that is done by non-professionals which quickly floods users’ feeds. These posts mainly consist of comparisons and the use of words to categorise foods as “good or bad”. (Linardon,2021)
These word connotations and comparisons are one of the major factors that contribute to eating disorders. (Cavazos, et, al. 2019) The constant viewing of categories comparisons usually alongside body transformation can often lead to your own opinions changing and forming these categories in your everyday life. These posts often create frequent self-comparison, fear of weight gain, and evaluation of weight and can lead to further the fasting world in diet culture. (Cavazos, et, al. 2019) These are all common first symptoms of eating disorders. Posts like these are impactful in the way that they often contain misinformation about foods and create a lot of false ideas. This is one of the key reasons that platforms need to take more control.
Figure 3. (Ashlee, 2022)
Most social media platforms revolve around pictures, these images create a certain feeling of trust and belief. (Dijck, 2008) This unfortunately has taken advantage of the false information these platforms hold. One of the most common places where your trust is taken advantage of would be the influencer market. This is so effective due to the relationship that is built between the influencer and the user. The goal of the influencer is to build a relationship where you trust them and they appear genuine, so when they do product recommendations or sponsorships you believe in their opinion and buy the product. (Hampton & Wellman, 2018) Another contributing factor to why people believe what they read on media platforms would be the sense of community. Something discusses further in the book “A Networked self” where they analyse virtual communities. (Papacharissi, 2010) An example is Facebook groups, which can make you feel vulnerable and therefore are more likely to trust others’ opinions and views, even if they’re wrong. Social media also has a significant amount of recommended content, this can at times get repetitive and lead the algorithm to feed you similar or same content. (Hampton & Wellman, 2018) As you read it more frequently this repetition can lead to a belief causing your brain to store this information. All of these little things on social media platforms are what you learn to trust and end up creating a belief system based on false information.
The influencer industry plays a big role in how social media platforms work and can often play a big part in the share of misinformation. Whether they create it or promote it they have such a large and or interactive audience most of them will listen and take it on board. They all relate to the relationship and levels of trust built between the influencer and audience. (Atherton, 2021) With the wellness, health and lifestyle industry being so big right now, the spread of misinformation in regards to health and dieting tips is bigger than ever before. (Kabata, Et, alt. 2022) The issues with this are how personal and different everyone handles health and how different bodies lose weight differently. An example of this could be intermediate fasting, this is something that does the rounds on the internet once a year and can lead to an eating disorder like anorexia, since it requires you to stop yourself from eating for a large period, so when you do eat, it can lead to a binge. (Linardon,2021)
Communities play an important role in social media to help create a sense of being for others. (Hampton & Wellman, 2018) These communities within platforms kind of create their own little space to share information, this information feels close and connected. This can be positive or negative as this communication doesn’t have to be factually correct and anyone can share what they want. Whilst some communities do have monitors to stop inappropriate posts, they can’t fact check every piece of information. This can be especially dangerous when it comes to health advice and the growth of communities promoting unhealthy eating habits. A key example of this would be tumblers’ “pro-ana” group. In the more health-related communities, it’s not always intentional to spread misinformation but can lead to serious effects like eating disorders, starvation and the creation of negative food associations.
Binge eating is something that has started to be talked about nowadays but can sometimes be used in the wrong context due to how it’s displayed wrongly open social media. (Kabata, Et, alt. 2022) Often people believe this is more of just a situational thing, something that could happen to anyone. When the reality is that this is a real eating disorder that seriously affects a lot of people. In reality, it is an impulsive eating session, it happens a lot more regularly and is incredibly painful for the person involved. This is one of the many ways that misinformation through social media can impact others into self-diagnosis or mistakenly belittling an eating disorder. (Kabata, Et, alt. 2022)
Anorexia is the most talked about eating disorder discussed on media from recovery support accounts to the pro-ana community (Talbot, Gavin, Steen, Morey, 2017) and the sexualisation of the medical disorder. In the case of misinformation, the promotion and encouragement of anorexia is a form of this, as these accounts believe, support and encourage something incredibly harmful. Promoting that becoming anorexic is good. This false information about eating disorders can result in death. The misinformation of being skinny is perfection along with it being viewed as positive or good is false and is incredibly harmful to others. A modern example would be the underlying community of “pro-ana” “bonespirtation”. (Talbot, Gavin, Steen, Morey, 2017)
Things are being done and blocked, but is this enough? After a lot of awareness and discussion has been done, platforms have made attempts to stop and limit this spread. Regarding hashtags, many have been blocked and often encourage the viewer to be guided to a help website.
Figure 4. (TikTok, 2016)
Many influencers have also taken it upon themselves to spread a positive understanding and neutralise food content. This information is now done factually were posted direct or reference, the attempts to avoid the spread of misinformation are on the rise.
Figure 5. (Lenehan, 2022)
I still believe social media platforms need to be stepping up and doing more as an organisation. Resource checking, similar to how they did for covid-19 but in regards to food and the information abundant world.
Overall, this paper demonstrated how social media provides a larger platform for the spread of misinformation about health and dieting which results in the growth of eating disorders. This can be inferred through our understating of how the algorithm has impacted and grown the spread of this misinformation, through the money grabs and lack of monitoring. After researching further, the concept “why the misinformation we read online is so trusted” is clear through the understanding of virtual communities. (Papacharissi, 2010) It’s easy to see how social media has made this misinformation issue so much larger and more impactful to the point it is increasing the amount of eating disorders around the globe.
Reference list
Atherton, E. (2021) Moralizing Hunger: Culture fatphobia and the moral language of contemporary diet culture. Feminist philosophy quarterly, 7 (3), 2-36. https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/fpq/index
Auguste, K. Bradshaw, A. Bajalia, A. Treise, D. Shelton, S. Cretul, M. Seoane, S. Monstserrat, M. (2019). Detox Tea advertising on social media: examining the content of popular Detox Brands on Instagram. ElSEVIER, 51(7), 205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2019.05.581
Cavazos-Rehg PA, Krauss MJ, Costello SJ, Kaiser N, Cahn ES, Fitzsimmons-Craft EE, et al. (2019) “I just want to be skinny.”: A content analysis of tweets expressing eating disorder symptoms. PLoS ONE 14(1). https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207506
Dijck, JD. (2008). Digital Photography: communication, identity, memory, University of Amsterdam, 58-73.
Hampton, K. & Wellman, B. (2018). Lost and saved… Again: The moral panic about the loss of community takes hold of social media. Contemporary Sociological vol.47(6), 643-65. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26585966
Kabata, P. Winniczuk-Kabata, D. Kabata, P. Jas ́kiewicz, J. Połom, K. Can Social Media Profiles Be a Reliable Source of Information on Nutrition and Dietetics? Healthcare2022,10,397. https://doi.org/10.3390/ healthcare10020397
Linardon, J. (2021). Positive body image, intuitive eating, and self- comparision protect against the onset of the core symptoms of eating disorders: A prospective study.— 1967- 1977. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eat.23623
Papacharissi, Z. (Ed.). (2010). A networked self : Identity, community, and culture on social network sites. Taylor & Francis Group. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/curtin/detail.action?docID=574608#
Talbot, C. Gavin, J. Steen, T. Morey, Y. (2017) A content analysis of thinspiration, fitspiration, and bonespiration imagery of social media. Joiurnal of eating disorders, 5(1), 2-8. https://jeatdisord.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s40337-017-0170-2.pdf
Villanueva, E. (2021). The Body as Information: An Emergent Theory of Social Positioning and Information Behaviours in a Virtual Diet Community, 1-215. https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-qhx4-hb56
Wen-Ying, S. April, O. William, K. (2018). Addressing Health-Related misinformation on social media, Vol. 320 (23), 2417-2418. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2715795
Figure 1
Gillie, J. [jackiegilliestv]. (2021, 27 November). Women dressed up holding tea promoting tea brand [proud to be apart of @janetroachw @rawessentialstea #teaAd featuring on the #rhomemelbourne .. had the best time! Can wait for everyone to see the end result! Love ya @joantroachw. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CWw-UVKhNS2/
Figure 3
Ashlee, A. [weightlosswithashlee]. (2022, Febuary 23). Girl wearing over sized pants to show weight loss and good vs bad food iteams. [ Diet Tips for Weight Loss Obviously if you can’t cut out your worst food indulgences. As hard as that is for many. You will continue to struggle to lose weight. Guaranteed. Want to finally start losing weight? Get my free ebook by clicking the profile link. Discover how you can start losing weight instantly.. @weightlosswithashlee What you eat is the most important component to losing weight loss. Not sure what to eat? Don’t enjoy cooking? Get delicious and healthy gourmet meals delivered to your door. First week 25% off and free shipping included. Click the link in the bio @weightlosswithashlee ]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CaSbEVKOGIz/
Figure 5
Lenehan, B. [Breeelenehan]. (2022, April 4). Women showing how different posing make you look skinny vs relaxed photo showing how its all about poses not weight loss. [ This is NOT a before and after photo… (swipe across) 👉 I can’t believe I still see so many “transformation” photos like this. Most of the time, they’re taken on the same day with the same outfit, just posed differently or edited in order to convince you that you can achieve the same results in a short period of time using their “solution” AKA a product of some sort. There are so many industries that survive on the back of a society who believes they need to be fixed. Our insecurities fill their pockets. So I’m just leaving this here to tell you… Each of the photos in this post were taken just a few seconds apart. Both are me. Both are healthy. Both are good enough.I know that today could be the day you decide to kickstart your health journey to reach your “body goals” after a weekend of simply ✨ ENJOYING YO LIFE ✨ and there’s nothing wrong with working on yourself whichever way you want to, but I’ll just leave this here as a reminder that you don’t need to “fix” or change or punish your body today. A woman who works out regularly, eats well and lives a healthy lifestyle can have belly fat, cellulite, stretch marks, and doesn’t always look as toned as she may appear online (for e.g. me). So if you want to start adding healthier habits into your life today, forget the shortcuts or quick-fixes, forget the “Get rid of cellulite in 14 days with this!”… You can make positive changes to your life in ways that don’t feel like punishment at all. And you can still eat a well-rounded diet that includes snack nights with friends and dining out with family. There’s no need for you to make up for anything you did or ate over the weekend. Please, go into this week treating yourself only with kindness and love! If we base our self-worth on something as ever-changing as our bodies, we will forever be on the emotional rollercoaster of body obsession and shame. Happy Real Me Monday! 💛 #imperfectionisbeauty #selftalk #expectationvsreality #thisisreal #embraceyourbody #fitnessinfluencer #selfconfidence #instagramvsreality #lovingmyself #effyourbeautystandards #selfesteemboost #unposed #selfconfidence #happyinmyskin] Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb7M1ATB4PS/
Hi Felicity,
Thanks for sharing your paper—you’ve addressed a really important issue! You’ve outlined the ways that people can use social media platforms to share and promote misinformation about diets and nutrition, and the ways that these platforms can be used to promote eating disorders. It was good to see your note that a number about the influencers working to combat airbrushed images on Instagram with their own before and after-shots.
Your discussion about platforms blocking certain hashtags and encouraging users to visit helpful websites was really interesting, and I’d be keen to get your thoughts on what you think communities on social media could do to better manage the deluge of information their community members bring, share and post in their groups/pages, particularly if it is a community formed around diet and health, and particularly if the community attempts to facilitate wide social interaction? E.g. do you think there should be greater moderation and vetting in these communities?
I liked your idea about resource checking and the comparison you draw to the ways social media platforms have come to include notifications about COVID-19 misinformation. I wonder, though, whether part of the difficulty with stamping out dieting misinformation and unrealistic/airbrushed images of slim models, unlike COVID-19 misinformation is that the desire for thinness is also a broader social issue (i.e. slimness isn’t just conflated with healthfulness, but it is bound up with a troublingly broader social problematic that designates which bodies are beautiful or desirable and which are not)?
I’d be interested to get your thoughts!
Eva
You raised a couple of real though starters, Eva! I have one for you similar to a comment I made earlier. Is it Instagram who should be held responsible for stopping the provision of misinformation or is it the poster themselves?? I am on the fence with this one but keen to hear your thoughts
Hello Antony,
I feel the platforms should be held responsible for the misinformation and should monitor this compared to users who are more unreliable . Although as I mentioned prior I do believe that in the communities themselves, the person who runs it should also have measures in place and people allocated to help the monitories the groups or monitor the group themselves.
Thanks.
Hi Antony, sorry about the delay getting back to you. It’s definitely a tricky one because it has the potential to skirt the line between things like freedom of opinion and expression (e.g. there’s something of a difference between someone saying “this worked for me!” and “these are the facts!”) and censorship, and as we know, the very legitimate and very troubling issue of misinformation. The difficulty with something like misinformation, and with stopping it, is that I think it is an issue that goes beyond individual platforms and individual posters–I think it gestures to a larger social issue (breakdowns in certainty, community and trust). That said, I think that the platform needs to take responsibility when these sorts of breaches occur. I don’t think that individuals always post/share misinformation for strictly malicious or nefarious reasons (they might genuinely think they are being helpful) and I’m likewise not convinced that fixing misinformation should just be an individual effort either. I think that making platforms take responsibility for the proliferation of misinformation (rather than individuals) could lead to greater social awareness of and involvement in stamping out misinformation.
But these are just my thoughts–I’d be interested to get your thoughts on this too!
Hello,
I do believe there are two options that platforms can take in managing this misinformation issue. They should monitor either similar to the covid situation where they had informational pop up to particular words. They could also hire more people to create a monitoring team on the platform or it could also become a rule where communities and online groups/servers have a required amount of monitors similar to how on twitch and disorder \ they choose their own moderators.
I do believe that the idea of skinny is beauty is a big social issue that needs to be addressed, although I think social media and the management of misinformation could be a big starting point in assisting with the movement of everybody is beautiful. Although I think that social media misinformation needs to be handled firstly, as it is a pressing issue which the “skinny is beautiful” is leading to eating disorders and more severe effects.
Thanks for your comment, Eva.
Hi Felicity, Great paper! I enjoyed reading this and found some similar points in your paper in my own. I do agree that the platforms such as instagram can do more to spread positive awareness on eating disorders and support for their users as they did during the hight of the COVID-19 pandemic as it demonstrated that social network platforms have the ability to provide that support and monitoring.
As you mentioned about algorithms, how do you suppose that platforms or users be able to change their content consumer habits and not fall into the echo chamber of pro eating disorders and misinformations based on the current climate and use of algorithms currently? How do you suppose Influencers who do promote positive content combat the many that don’t and are they responsible for highlighting users that provide negative misinformation?
Hello Lorena,
You raised some really interesting points and a difficult question as there is no true way to have full control over others’ actions, although I do think by spreading more awareness and getting platforms to step up their game in their monitoring of misinformation we can make a large impact.
I do believe there is not much the current influence can do besides continue doing the right thing by posting this positive content and raising people’s awareness. Therefore helping young people is going to make an impact. We can hope other influencers learn and understand the issue but we cannot control others’ actions.
Thanks, Felicity.
Hi Felicity,
Thanks for taking time to read and respond to my comment. Yes, I do agree it’s very hard to put regulations in place for other’s actions on such a wide scale platform like social networks. I do, also hope that Influencers take precautions and understand certain issues they promote and talk about.
Thanks,
Lorena
Hi Felicity. I really worry about the youth of today and the impact such a reliance on such social media platforms as Instagram is having on the mental and physical health of young women. I do have a question. Do you think it is the role of social media, such as Instagram, to monitor and police the sharing of misinformation? Or could there be a world in which the people responsible for sharing the information are held to account? I have written a paper on how the fashion industry has had a significant impact on the mental health of youth through the use if Instagram and when comparing our papers position posed the question to myself. Would love to hear your opinion.
If you are interested, you can read my paper here.
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/csm/113/youd-be-correct-if-you-thought-the-fashion-industrys-use-of-instagram-has-had-a-negative-impact-on-young-women/#comment-583
Hi Antony,
I found your comment really interesting as it is an area that I am on the fence about. However, I lean more towards the stance that it is not the role of social media platforms to monitor and police the sharing of misinformation. I think this because, in my opinion, society will always find a way to share misinformation, regardless of what platform or means we choose to use. Thus I think the people that share misinformation should be the ones who are held accountable, as opposed to social media platforms as a whole. Although this would be ideal, it is likely impossible – as it is always quite difficult to find the precise root of misinformation.
I would be interested to hear more about where you, Felicity and others stand on this issue.
Thanks,
Ike
Hello Ike,
I do have to agree with you as I wish it wasn’t the platform’s job, as it would be hard to manage but I do also believe that having this kind of hope in people to share the right information is in most ways impossible. It does also raise the point for me that in some ways the platforms should be held as they are the ones not controlling what is said on their platforms and the impact that has on the consumers. It is quite a difficult situation but it’s clear something needs to be done.
Thanks, Felicity.
Hi Felicity,
I’m glad to hear that you resonated with the points that I made. I think in an ideal world people would check the accuracy of their information before posting – but it seems this might be a lot to ask for and an unrealistic goal. Hence why I can also understand why platforms should be held more responsible for what is posted and shared on them.
Thanks,
Ike
Hello Anthony,
As a young person, I do really worry about what future impacts this will have on our generation. In regards to your questions, I do think it is the platform’s job to monitor the information on their site, therefore, managing the misinformation. In the future, I hope there are more consequences for people’s actions with spreading misinformation as it’s only fair for how server some of these negative impacts are. I will have to give your paper I read later on today sounds very interesting.
Thanks, Felicity.
Hello Felicity,
Thanks for your post it was an interesting read. There have been other papers in our stream like this showing how prominent and important of a topic it is! When I see content on social media that is talking about food hacks or easy fitness tips, I always consider one thing, how can I know if this person has ever consumed/done this to be where they are? Like you said in your paper “Most social media platforms revolve around pictures, these images create a certain feeling of trust and belief.”, someone with an amazing physique can easily mislead their audience as they are visual evidence of success. But how are we to know what they are telling us is how they arrived at their success… Especially if we start to see monetary incentives for influencers which is even more concerning. I like the idea like what they did with COVID and have a small banner underneath content to ensure people are aware of misinformation. I was reading Instagrams “reducing the spread of false information on instagram” – https://help.instagram.com/1735798276553028 and they claim to be doing a lot to prevent potential misinformation. Do you think that it is working at all or has at least made improvements?
Hello Harry,
I feel although Instagram does claim they are doing a lot in regards to misinformation and in many ways are. They still haven’t completely gotten control of a lot of areas and communities on the site where a large amount go misinformation is held. The diet community is one. I believe this is due to how hard it is to find the balance of what is and isn’t true, along with their lack of staffing to ensure this area is frequently monitored. Overall I do think they have made some improvements but still have a long way to go.
Hi Antony,
I found your comment really interesting as it is an area that I am on the fence about. However, I lean more towards the stance that it is not the role of social media platforms to monitor and police the sharing of misinformation. I think this because, in my opinion, society will always find a way to share misinformation, regardless of what platform or means we choose to use. Thus I think the people that share misinformation should be the ones who are held accountable, as opposed to social media platforms as a whole. Although this would be ideal, it is likely impossible – as it is always quite difficult to find the precise root of misinformation.
I would be interested to hear more about where you, Felicity and others stand on this issue.
Thanks,
Ike
Hi Felicity,
I completely agree and also relate to your paper. When I was in high-school I had been sucked into buying detoxing teas that make you skinnier from influencers that I “trusted” and the reaction to my body was not worth it at all. I don’t understand why we feel we can trust random influencers when they aren’t even qualified professionals in the area of health? How does Kim Kardashian seem so educated on health tips when that not even the reason she is famous? I agree, the relationship between user and influencer is made to be so strong that it can be almost dangerous. I’m sure when you compare eating disorders to now vs before social media existed the statistics would be must lower. Social media allows an unrealistic perception of body image as I have talked about in my paper. Still to this day I tend to consider dieting from the influence of others on social media which is a very toxic habit that has been engraved in our brains to almost look ‘perfect’. I found when you mentioned about social media platforms blocking specific hashtags to be very interesting as you mentioned for ‘young people’. Children nowadays are getting their first phone at ages 10-12 and being exposed to such misinformation can be triggering and scary. In my opinion, i feel like it is very hard to monitor and limit misinformation on social media platforms as it will always somehow work its way in and be present online and would take great lengths to completely get rid of. However, I am interested in what you think could be done to reduce the spread of misinformation, do you think it would be a good idea to get influencers involved? or do you think they only care about the money? I always wonder if influencers care more about their financial gain rather than spreading correct tips and information to their users. What are your thoughts?
Would love to hear your thoughts on my paper as i touch on some points you highlighted in your paper about body image with false identities being portrayed on Instagram.
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/ioa/393/instagram-portraying-fake-identities-with-content-causing-harm-to-mental-health/
Hello Ciera,
I’m so sorry you had to go through that, it is crazy how easy it is to trust these online influencers. I think it’s a great idea to get influences involved and I follow some who do share how dangerous it is to trust online information. In regards to the influencer world and whether they care more about money I feel it really depends on the person, A lot of influencers are genuine. Although there are quite a few who put money first, you can usually tell by what brands they promote. I will have to give your paper I read later today sounds fascinating!
Thanks, Felicity.
Hi Felicity,
Great work. It was captivating to read your work on this topic, and I agree entirely with you that social media platforms can make more efforts to create awareness about eating disorders and support this cause. Platforms like Instagram can use their influencers to voice out more on this issue and use more hashtags concerning eating disorders, making it more visible for people to relate to it.
I would like to have your views on my paper below:
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/csm/374/social-media-helped-in-creating-terror-and-panic-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-mauritius/
Thank you.
Hello,
Great to hear you enjoyed my paper, it’s definitely an issue that needs to be discussed more. I will give your paper a read later today!
Thanks, Felicity.
Hi Felicity,
This was a really insightful paper! While I was aware of how detrimental social media can be in the promotion of eating disorders, I had no idea about hashtags such as ‘bonspiration’ or ‘pro-ana’ which are extremely disturbing. As you say, although these hashtags have been blocked on certain platforms, the communities which utilise such still remain, and simply adapt their techniques to reach mass audiences. I am so glad you discussed self-diagnosis and the inadvertent belittling of EDs in online communities, as this is something I have seen a great deal of recently. I have seen so many TikTok skits that feature ‘binge-eating’ as the result of a breakup, etc., which would be incredibly harmful to actual sufferers of the disorder, and also serve to increase the stigma surrounding EDs. I’d love to hear your thoughts on ‘what I eat in a day’ videos. This content is always coming up on my fyp, and often feature calorie counting and ‘body-checks’ whereby people include photos of their physique before starting their video. Do you think this form of content is another thing to be concerned about in the promotion of EDs?
If you have time, I’d really appreciate your thoughts on my paper, as we cover some similar territory. I expand on your point about how audiences are extremely trusting of influencers, and perceive these relationships to be real and authentic (https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/csm/148/the-pivotal-puzz…mass-e-marketing/).
Thank you! 😊
Brooke
Hello Brooke,
As a consumer, I watch many “what I eat in a day” videos and TikTok. Although I have definitely seen a few comments of the concern of eating disorder triggers and follow a few people who refuse to do this content. I feel like this is a tricky area as it depends on how the content is done in my opinion, I personally haven’t seen the ones with physic photos and think that could be quite harmful. I can see the positives and negatives of this type of content, Personally it would come down to how the video is done and wether there is use of trigger warnings and awareness of how this could be harmful. I will give your paper a read later!
Thanks, Felicity.
hie Felicity,
That’s a great paper there, I enjoyed reading it and I totally agree with you that most young people are being pressured to follow a very unhealthy diet because they have allowed social media to define human beauty to them. Social media frame beauty to mean a slim body, flat tummy and a little curves. Inorder to achieve this we have seen many young peolpe starving their selves and taking some slimming supplements which in the end might be harmful to our health. I can relate very well to your paper as I have always been trying this and see no difference at all.
Martha.
Hello Martha
so sorry that you have gotten caught up in social media’s unrealistic beauty standards, I have been there myself. Glad to hear you enjoyed my paper!
Thanks, Felicity.
Hie felicity
a very interesting paper there. I agree with the idea that social media is promoting unhealthy eating disorders in young people. This is mainly because of the power that it has in shaping our reality. The destination of beauty has been framed to mean a flat tummy and a slim body. I can relate very well with your paper because i remember when I was in college, I bought quite a number of teas which were said to be effective, and I realised they actually kill your appetite and you end up not eating anything. You can follow the link below and also read my paper
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/ioa/956/social-media-pla…smatter-movement/
Hello Martha,
It’s awful to think people create and sell products so harmful. I will give your paper a read later today!
Thanks, Felicity.
Hi Felicity,
Your paper was gripping and informational. The thoughts, facts, and proofs discussed on the topic of misinformation on social media about health were to the point and spot on! I liked the know on this idea as I too come across the “skinny teas” that you talked about and vague accounts advocating diet charts and workouts.. that are neither subjective nor useful in the long run.
I loved reading your paper, it was attractive and informative with the help of snaps that supported the argument quite well. I liked that you questioned the impact of relevant advancements to protect the audience from misinformation.
ALthough, I found a few grammatical errors, but all good. Well done. 🙂 ALL THE BEST.
Hello Riya,
Thanks for the read, glad you found this information relatable.
Thanks, Felicity
Hi Felicity,
your paper was interesting with some good main points mentionned, in your article I can see that many people misinterpret the information given to them, they think that in order to keep fit they have to be really skinny and nowadays being skinny means being perfect. This is promoting unhealthy eating disorders which may have consequences in their life later on. These community are promoting unhealthy eating habits. I cam across hashtags like “thinspo”, “pro-ana”, and “bonspiration” while reading your article which i didn’t even know about and these terms are quite disturbing. This really sad as this makes people how have body shapes feel insecure about themselves and therefore they blindly follow the pattern. This is clearly destroying people’s life thiking that they should be skinny in order to fit in the society, this is an alarming issue and something need to be done.
Hi Felicity,
What an insightful and highly engaging read! I am also highly involved with the health and nutrition community on many social media platforms and all these issues presented in your paper are very real and highly concerning. The amount of misinformation dissimilated on social media platforms is highly worrying and as you mentioned, very frustrating. It angers me to see so called ‘health and wellness’ influencers on TikTok (with hundreds if not millions of followers) promoting 3 day juice cleanses to such communities, claiming to have weight loss benefits as well as other benefits including higher energy levels and aids to ‘reset the gut’ – all which is completely misleading and factually incorrect. What I find particularly concerning is the younger, more impressionable audiences (particularly young girls) within these communities, consuming such information and believing/taking on board what their favourite influencer is promoting due to feelings of trust and bond created by these influencers within their communities.
In fact, I was watching a program on TV only last week in which featured a registered dietitian talking about how social media platforms are normalising ‘binges’ and almost glamorising such eating behaviours. She was talking about how the word ‘binge’ now-days is so commonly thrown around (and causally used) which should not be the case as (in her opinion) should not be used lightly. I’d love to know your opinion on this! She also brought to light the issue that it is not uncommon for influencers post about ‘binging’ on a a handful of cookies or a few rows of chocolate which is far from the definition of a ‘binge’. As you mentioned in your paper, people that suffer from and are clinically diagnosed with binge eating disorder, incur a significant amount of physical and mental pain as a result fo such behaviours however can’t stop. The registered dietitian was saying (which i never really thought of before) was that this can be highly harmful and triggering to those that are diagnosed which such disorders as it invalidates them and the disorder itself. I would love to know your thoughts on this too!
Lastly, I loved how you touched in social media platforms banning specific hashtags (e.g #proana). I’d love to know your thoughts regarding if/how effective this has been? Are individuals finding ways around this? If so, is there anything more you would recommend that social media platforms should be doing?
I also wrote about the issue of self proclaimed ‘health and fitness’ influencers spreading factually incorrect information to their communities on TikTok that you might be interested in reading! Feel free to have a read and i’d love to know your thoughts! Heres a link: https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/csm/909/health-and-fitness-influencers-on-tiktok-are-spreading-misinformation-to-young-and-impressionable-audiences-within-their-community/
Hey Felicity,
I’m actually really glad someone brought up such an overlooked issue. The fitness/health industry has become so reliant on digital media and brands such as EHPlabs really take advantage of misinformation and the power of influencers. So much misinformation is spread and with this comes communities that back this misinformation. It becomes quite hard to tell what is true and what is not because of this. Friends of mine even believed that eating below the adequate 1500 calories (for men) would be necessary for weight loss because of platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram, when in reality it’s destroying your body in so many ways. Not that it’s related but I do describe the way Tik Tok has created new ideas of communities.
Feel free to read my paper here: https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/csm/1213/tik-tok-strengthens-newer-ideas-of-community/
Thanks
Hi Felicity, this was a very interesting read. I thought the way you chose to start by discussing the history of diet culture on the internet, and the misinformation that surrounds it, was very well thought-out and definitely served as a good foundation for where your argument headed. I also liked how you incorporated social media as an advertising agency for products that promote unhealthy body expectations, and also the role influencers played. I feel like so many of the social media papers I have read so far, including my own, have all touched on influencers at some point. I think in today’s digital environment a discussion of social media without the mention of influencers is impossible, what do you think? Moving on, I also liked your inclusion of images as I think they definitely enhanced your argument as you provided visual evidence. I’d like to know; do you think that social media allows the misinformation about health and dieting to be targeted towards people who may be more susceptible or vulnerable to these ideas, i.e. do these platforms look at a user’s search history for example and then maybe target this type of content towards those users?
Hi Felicity,
What a great paper! I feel like regardless of age or gender whoever is on social media can see the harmful environment that it can be. I really enjoyed your use of visual aids to show the toxic products that are being pushed onto us for other monetary gain, which I myself have seen every single picture you included on my social media timeline somewhere. I feel like we are slowly stepping towards a more body positive environment on social media, but with up and coming influencers and celebrities, unfortunately they will sell whatever gives them views and money. What social media app do you believe plays the most part in setting this unrealistic beauty standard/ pushes these harmful products? What are the next steps you think we should take in abolishing these beauty standards/ letting these products be sold? More spread of info? Fact checkers/resources? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Again, such an amazing paper great job 🙂
– J
Hi Felicity,
I really enjoyed reading your paper. Indeed I do agree that social media acts as a medium for the spread of misinformation about health and dieting whichh results in eating disorders.
You mentioned how platforms such as Instagram can do more to spread awareness about this issues and support their users and I completely agree with you. I also think regulations and restrictions on fake ads such as pills to get fit or decrease body fat should be applied on social networks and they can follow the twitter and twitch algorithm such as word restrictions. With the advancement of technology there is hope that we may find a solution such as AI bots to detect non factual information.
Moreover, I do think that social media influencers should be more responsible about their content, like you mentioned in your paper, the relationship between influencers and their followers is based on trust and although in recent times a lot of lifestyle and heath influencers have been called out due to the promotion of unrealistic body image via branded content for money incentives. It’s good to to see the rise of some positive content influencers against Photoshop and facetune photos with their own before and after shots.
An example that influencers such as the Kardashians should follow in order to raise awareness to their significant amount of audience unfortunately its not the case as they are notorious for the use of such software on their photos. In terms of misinformation, Khloe Kardashian, who is known for her weight loss, was accused of promoting toxic and harmful detox tea, here’s an article that talks about it if you’re interested : https://www.teenvogue.com/story/jameela-jamil-khloe-kardashian-detox-tea
I also talked about the issue of the spread of misinformation and unrealistic body image promoted by social media influencers in my paper, so feel free to read and comment on it :
https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2022/csm/883/social-media-influncers-a-liability-to-society/
Thank you again,
Shivam
Hello, Felicity Dureau. This was a wonderful read, and congratulations for shedding light on the dark and discouraging reality of social media and its potential for exploitation. While platforms and governments have a large portion of the responsibility for combating disinformation, is there anything you would propose based on your study into this area to assist victims of misinformation?
-Radib
Hello, Felicity.
Thank you for sharing your article You’ve described how individuals may use social media to spread misinformation about nutrition as well as how these sites can be used to encourage negative body image. I believe that social media content creators should be more responsible with their content. As you mentioned, many followers trust their influencers and although many of them influencer have been pointrd at for promoting fake body image through brands that pay them, It’s encouraging to see the growth of some positive content influencers who are speaking out against fake manipulated photographs.
I love the fact that you included images too. It made your paper more interesting to read !
Hi Felicity,
Thanks for sharing your paper. It was great to read and have an insight into social media and the misinformation on social media. Whilst platforms such as Instagram have such a large responsibility do you think they should take reporting of content on their platform more seriously and make it easier for people to report content? From personal experience, I have found that reporting content takes some time and a lot of the time Instagram, for example, misses the ‘danger’ in what someone has posted such as those diets, etc. that could actually cause harm and how it can affect the audience.
I loved the addition of images into your paper as well but overall was very interesting!