Social networks encourage extreme thinness

Anorexia mostly affects young girls between the ages of 14 and 17. This behavioral problem leads to strict food deprivation and voluntary for several months, even several years. In France 230,000 women would be affected. A new study, carried out by the University of Exeter in England, looked at the impact of social networks in this disease. The results appeared in the Journal of Eating Disorder.

A new way to glorify thinness

#thinspiration, #bonespiration, #respiration… All these tags, banned one after the other, do not cease to flourish on the web. Even if since 2012 the keywords likely to promote eating disorders are prohibited, Internet users each time adopt new alternatives to share their photos fueling a cult of thinness. Protruding hips, well defined ribs, collarbones and spines showing, the goal is to brag about his skeletal appearance and inspire others to achieve the same emaciated appearance. The study shows that the images broadcast are becoming more and more extreme.

After analyzing more than 730 photos posted by girls and young women on social networks such as Twitter and Instagram, the psychology researchers found that the new hashtags, replacing the banned ones, conveyed increasingly bad images. Academics fear that social media has replaced pro-anorexia websites and become an easy-to-access medium for encourage eating disorders contributing to a distorted view of their own body.

Nevertheless, the authors of the study argue that banning these markers listing these photos is unnecessary, because there will always be new ones. They advocate for a removal of these images, just as they would with illegal pornography, and education in schools on “positive body image” to mitigate any external pressuresencouraging weight loss.

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