¨We don’t understand why you’re here. You should be dead.¨

CASE STUDY ONE: ASHLEE THOMAS

These horrifying words were spoken to Ashlee Thomas, a fourteen year old girl, as she was admitted into the hospital weighing less than 40 kilograms. The doctor wasn't being cruel. He was just in shock, and for good reason: during her stay in the hospital, Ashlee's heart failed her twice.

How many days have you spent in the hospital in your life? Three? Maybe four? For 14 year old Ashlee Thomas, that answer would be more than 90 days at one time. In fact, Ashlee weighed less than 99% of girls her age. Why, one might ask, was Thomas in this situation? It was not due to cancer, or to some sort of rare, contagious disease, but it was due to something just as deadly: anorexia nervosa, a type of self-imposed starvation.

By her own account, Instagram's algorithm had exploited Thomas's personal well being at a time when she was feeling vulnerable. She asserts that the social media platform further developed feelings about herself fostered by her environment, school, and culture ( a wish to be shaped like the ¨ideal¨ female form as well as to become a healthier person). She responded to these triggers by imitating the behavior of the creators, specifically in relation to food. Thomas describes cutting out foods from her diet on the advice of (likely unqualified) internet advice.

AN OVERVIEW OF EATING DISORDERS

According to the National Institutes of Health, anorexia nervosa affects up to 3% of young women (although less common, anorexia among males is also highly dangerous) and has the highest mortality rate of any psychic disorder. Approximately 10.2 thousand people die from anorexia each year- this number equates to about one person every 52 minutes (Washington, 2025). Furthermore, in the less than two decades between 2000 and 2018, eating disorder diagnoses nearly doubled.

To sufferers of anorexia and bulimia, the relationship with food is a dangerous, terrifying, and broken one. Anorexia is classified in the DSM-5 as a disturbance characterized by a ¨restriction of energy intake¨ as well as an ¨intense fear of.. becoming fat¨. Bulimics, meanwhile, often ingest large quantities of food at once and then respond by ¨purging¨ or attempting to rid oneself of calories and therefore the weight one may potentially gain as a result of the binge. Both of these eating disorders are terrifically dangerous- purging can result in numerous side effects from organ damage to severe dehydration, and anorexia, as previously described, can quickly lead to many forms of starvation-related deaths. Those suffering from an eating disorder may become infertile, damage their cognitive abilities, develop bradycardia (slow heart rates), lanugo (a furlike protection from cold), or lose the ability to regulate temperature.

RISK FACTORS IN TEENS

Several common driving factors of eating disorders: a wish to alter your body shape and a fear of weight gain, are not only present in eating disorder sufferers but in the majority of the population as well: particularly adolescents. According to Good Health Psych, 75% of adolescent females and 70% of adolescent males have at least one social media account. And of this group, 52% of girls and 45% of guys will engage in an unhealthy or restrictive method of weight loss (e.g. meal skipping, over-exercising), following viewing of content. In another study (Baker, 2025), high school students who spend two hours or more a day on social media are 60% more likely to experience self-perception and body image issues. All the studies described expose a clear link between a risk factor for ED development and youth exposure to potentially triggering content.

CAUSATION OR CORRELATION?

This phenomenon was further explored through an examination in PMC. The experiment focused on the connection between a distorted perception of self and the portrayal of idealized beauty in the media. In the first study, females were exposed to images of models of relatively slim, midsized, and larger women, and it was reported that the former experiment immediately resulted in a significantly lower view of one's own body in comparison to the other two. This effect was stronger for teenagers under the age of 19, one of the most explicit messages that the way we browse and view content does affect us. And unfortunately for us, we are statistically much more likely to run into the first kind of picture- as described in Science Daily, 90% of young women have used filters or editing to ¨better¨ the way they appear in a photo (make it more conforming to society's expectations.)

“I would say there were so many contributing factors [to my anorexia] , but one of the major ones would have been social media,¨ says Thomas (Daily Mail). “I think I was in denial, and I never thought there was an issue because losing weight and wanting to be healthy is so glamorized in the world we live in today that I just thought I was doing what everyone else was doing.¨

CULTURAL AND MEDIA'S RELATIONSHIP WITH WEIGHT AND BODIES

Being overweight or ¨fat¨ has consistently been stigmatized in various forms of media, dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. Despite the reliable increase in overweight individuals, (as of today, nearly one in every 3 Americans is past their healthy weight range), thinness is still glorified as one of the most binding beauty standards of European criterion. In fact, according to the CDC, being underweight as classified by Body Mass Index still only applies to less than 2% of the American population. This ideal is perpetuated through television, with only 13% of females and 24% of males, respectively, being portrayed as overweight on screen. Furthermore, characters portrayed as overweight are commonly either subjected to a harmful stereotype or are actively ridiculed, sometimes explicitly for their weight. Anti-fat rhetoric was also commonly used as a fear-based form of motivation to become thinner, particularly in females.

Numerous exploratory studies have determined a relationship between a weight-bias/fatphobia and exposure to appearance focused media content (Ata, R. N., & Thompson, J. K., 2010). Similarly, the description of weight gain as a health crisis has also increased weight-bias, however the opposite effect was shown in regards to body-positive content.

Individual factors can also affect a person's perception of obesity. Perceived or actual size can intensify the effects of such media, leading to (in the case of a non-overweight person) judgement, and, (in the case of an overweight person) feelings of shame and humiliation. And BMI and body-perception are disproportionately connected based on [censored]: females are more likely to perceive a link between the two than males (Bennett, B. L., Wagner, A. F., Obleada, K. T., & Latner, J. D., 2020)

CASE STUDY 2

A similar experience was shown in the case study of teenager Anastasia Vlasova, whose own experience with anorexia nervosa was intensified by Instagram's continuous pushing of ¨clean eating¨ and ¨the ideal body type¨(CNN). Now describing her affiliation with social media as an ¨unhealthy obsession¨, Vlasova maintains that Instagram damaged her mental well being. ¨I was exposed to the highly unregulated, like side of Instagram, where there were fitness influencers and nutritionists who weren’t necessarily qualified to be giving advice, especially to like a 13, 14 year old who’s on Instagram and their body is changing.¨ When asked about her current stance on youth and social media, she states (RF) , ¨I just think it’s really dangerous to have access to something on a daily, if not hourly basis… these are some of the most critical years of our lives.¨

It is important to note:an eating disorder is a complex illness that cannot in any way be considered due solely to one cause. However, a similarity can be observed between Vlasova and Thomas: social media provided them an opportunity to channel their stresses into unhealthy and unsafe eating habits that had lasting impacts.

Both Thomas and Vaslova have gone on to make complete recoveries, distancing themselves from social media and instead focusing on their own mental health, anxieties, and relationships with their bodies. Thomas and Vaslova now advocate to destigmatize mental illness and create a more positive space for girls to talk about their bodies. “I know that desperation to want to look a certain way and it’s so sad,” Ashlee says. ¨And as soon as you reach it you feel even worse about yourself.”

CONCLUSION

Disordered and restrictive eating can have many underlying motivations. Factors such as family stressors, self-esteem issues, a desire for control, and childhood trauma can all deeply affect the mind and drive obsessions with food. However, there is one new and ever-changing presence that permanently alters the way we see the world: the media. And as the growing field of technology provides us with so many new opportunities, it is our responsibility to make sure that it doesn't also provide a means to harm oneself.