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TW: Eating disorders
"We don’t understand why you’re here. You should be dead."
These 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 in shock, and for good reason. During her stay in the hospital, Ashlee´s heart failed twice.
How many days have you spent in the hospital in your life? Three or four? For this 14 year old, that answer would be more than 90 days at one time, weighing less than 99% of girls her age.
Why, you might ask, was Thomas in this situation? It was not due to cancer, or to some sort of rare, contagious disease, but to something just as deadly: anorexia nervosa, a type of self-starvation.
Anorexia affects up to 3% of young women (it is slightly less common for men) and has the highest death risk of any other mental disorder. Around 10,200 people die from anorexia each year, about one person every 52 minutes. A more common eating disorder is called bulimia, in which a person overeats and then attempts to get rid of the calories.
Image Credit: Engin Akyurt from Unsplash
Between 2000 and 2018, eating disorder diagnoses nearly doubled.
To sufferers of eating disorders, the relationship with food is terrifying. Anorexia is classified as a "restriction of energy intake" as well as an "intense fear of...becoming fat". Bulimics, meanwhile, often eat too much food at once and then respond by purging (often but not always vomiting).
Both of these are very dangerous- affecting every organ and often causing death. Eating disorders sufferers can become infertile, damage their brain, develop bradycardia (slow heart rates), lanugo (a furlike protection from cold), and every body system they have is impacted.
Ashlee´s eating disorder was a result of all kinds of stresses, factors...and a dangerous obsession with social media.
According to Ashlee, Instagram increased her negative thoughts about herself and her desire to become thinner. She found herself imitating influencers, cutting out foods from her diet on the advice of people not qualified to give it.
Spend five minutes online, and you´ll see it too. Dozens of ads for diet pills, Ozempic, new weight loss methods, and more pop up. Kim Kardashian sells appetite suppressants and goes on camera talking about starving herself.
And as social media evolves, so does our fatphobia. Using euphemisms like "glow up tips" or "harsh motivation", teenagers bully each other online, often telling them that their lives will become better or that people will like them more if they diet. In such an environment, it's no wonder that so many people become obsessed with their weight!
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Social media can hurt both viewers and influencers. For example, Zhanna Samsonova, who posted about her fruit-only diet for a decade, is now dead, most likely due to malnutrition and infection. Friends described her behavior as "childlike", one even saying that she had avoided water for the past 6 years, instead drinking juices.
She even claimed that complete fasting could fix a COVID-19 infection. When criticized, she claimed that she was "like Jesus," and a holder of knowledge. And yet, she had 41,000 followers.
On the other side of things, teenager Anastasia Vlasova’s experience with anorexia nervosa was furthered by Instagram´s pushing of "clean eating" on her. Now describing her relationship with social media as an ¨unhealthy obsession¨, Vlasova said that Instagram damaged her 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,” she tells an interviewer at Ruderman.
When asked about her current stance on youth and social media, she states, "I just think it’s really dangerous to have access to something on a.. hourly basis."
There is, of course, no one cause of eating disorders: it’s a complex illness, often stemming from deeper issues such as childhood trauma and a need for control. But there is a similarity between Vlasova and Thomas: social media provided them an opportunity to channel their stresses into something dangerous and unhelpful.
Both Thomas and Vaslova have gone on to make complete recoveries, and now advocate to create a more positive space for girls like them. “I know that desperation to want to look a certain way and it’s so sad,” Ashlee said. "And as soon as you reach it you feel even worse about yourself.”
Image Credit: Engin Akurt from Unsplash
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A Breeding Ground For Eating Disorders
While finding sketchy content on social media may not be a shock to anyone, pro-ED websites take this to a whole new level. They don’t just encourage weight loss, but eating disorders themselves!
Promoting mantras like ¨the skinnier I am, the happier I'll be,¨ these content creators insist that not eating is a lifestyle choice, something that I hope all of you know, is terribly incorrect. These websites are used to share “tips” to suppress appetites and to purge, and there are no ways to avoid children reading them. Kids as young as eight found themselves posting messages like ¨I just ate a cream cheese cracker, please forgive me everyone,¨ and ¨for best results, eat half an apple/150 kcal a day!" 43% offer advice on how to avoid treatment. 43% offer advice on how to avoid treatment for their condition, and around 42% did not see any problem with these actions. These sites can cause victims of EDs to refuse help, thinking that what they’re doing is safe.
What Can We Do About It?
Like it or not, social media is a part of our world now. But remember, everyone now has a voice, but not everyone’s ideas are correct. Have boundaries, take screen breaks. Always fact check your information, and remember that if something seems sketchy or off, it probably is!
(Statistics from WHO, NIH, and NEDA).
Interview information from Daily mail, Ruderman, and CNN
To find out more:
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/statistics/
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/eating-disorders
https://rudermanfoundation.org/podcasts/anastasia-vlasova-gen-z-mental-health-advocate/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/09/us/instagram-eating-disorders/index.html
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