Health professionals are raising concerns about the impact of social media on young people’s mental and physical health. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are accused of glorifying extreme thinness and spreading dangerous misinformation about nutrition.
Young women and girls remain the most affected by anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder, though cases among young men are rising.
Global data shows a troubling trend. The proportion of people who have experienced an eating disorder more than doubled from 3.5% in 2000 to 7.8% in 2018. This increase coincides with the growth of social media.
Healthcare professionals say online platforms worsen recovery efforts, often acting as triggers for vulnerable individuals.
“We no longer treat an eating disorder without also addressing social media use,” said French dietitian Carole Copti.
Psychiatrist Nathalie Godart explained that while social media isn’t the root cause, it can push susceptible individuals into harmful behaviors.
“Promoting unattainable beauty standards, rigid dieting, and excessive exercise routines weakens already vulnerable people and amplifies the threat to their health,” she said.
Harmful Trends and Misinformation
One alarming trend is the rise of hashtags like #skinnytok, which flood TikTok with harmful content encouraging dangerously low food intake and punishing attitudes toward eating.
French nurse Charlyne Buigues, who specializes in treating eating disorders, noted that such content normalizes disordered eating behaviors and even glamorizes them.
“Taking laxatives or vomiting are presented as a perfectly legitimate way to lose weight, when actually they increase the risk of cardiac arrest,” Buigues warned.
Eating disorders carry one of the highest mortality rates among psychiatric conditions and are the second leading cause of early death among 15- to 24-year-olds in France.
The Role of Social Media in Prolonging Disorders
Experts warn that social media traps young people in a vicious cycle. Those with low self-esteem may receive praise or attention online for appearing extremely thin, reinforcing their condition and making recovery harder.
“People suffering from eating disorders often have low self-esteem. But by exposing their thinness on social media, they gain followers, views, likes… and this will perpetuate their problems and prolong their denial,” Copti explained.
Some users even earn money from harmful content. One case involved a young woman who livestreamed herself vomiting on TikTok and used the income to buy more food, fueling a dangerous cycle.
Calls for Stronger Safeguards
Experts say recovery is complicated by unqualified influencers promoting misleading and sometimes illegal dietary practices.
“These influencers often hold more sway with teenagers than health institutions or official guidelines,” Godart noted.
Despite efforts to report harmful content, Buigues said most of it remains online, rarely removed or penalized by platforms.
She has advised some patients to delete their social media accounts altogether, particularly TikTok, as a preventative measure.
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