Instagram and eating

disorders
Anna Trhlíková 511480
 Table of contents
What is an eating
Prevention
disorder?
1. 3. What can be done on
Types of ED IG to prevent ED?
Tips

Instagram and
developing an ED Conclusion
2. Why it can be toxic?
4.
Summary of
Who is prone to ED’s important points
on IG?
 What is an eating disorder?
And why it is so dangerous

Anorexia Bulimia Orthorexia

Little to no food Eating huge amounts Only eating “clean”
Afraid of gaining of food Healthy obsession
Feeling “fat” Throwing up later Overdoing physical
Secret eating activity
Never enough Feeling guilty of “Prisoner of our
eating, swearing not diet”
to do it again
 How can Instagram become a trigger for
an ED?
- Social media = known to influence body image
- Poor body image = risk factor of an ED
- Thin ideal (TV shows, movies, “beauty standards in society”)
- Fear of becoming “fat”
- Comparing to others, always seeing them better than ourselves
- Many photos are edited
- The posts do not have to be as true as they are presented

Seeing “perfect” pictures of others → comparing ourselves

→ feeling not skinny/healthy enough → ED friendly environment
 Who can be prone to developing an ED?
- Anyone with poor body image
- Women, men and children

- Most prone are teenagers (mainly girls aged 12+)

- Teenage years → developing identities, comparing with others
- Feeling attractive becomes very important
- Wanting to “fit in” with their peers, be like them
- Intense pressure to be thin can develop very unhealthy self-
esteem
 Instagram and food content
What may be toxic?
Full days of Fitness models Diet culture
eating
Profiles “ basically
Very popular Fitness = their entire life
promoting” anorexia
Sometimes not realistic
Irresponsibly made? “Labelling good and bad
Spend huge amounts of
Not enough calories? money on their look
foods”
The more skinny, the better
Can easily develop a Almost impossible for
Cutting out entire food
feeling, that we are an average person to be
groups, extreme diets or
eating more than we like them (not enough
physical activity
should be time or money for it)
Tips for safe Instagram use

- Select the accounts you follow

- Unfollow those that don't make you feel good
- Think critically (is this even real?)
- Limit screen time, see real friends
- Don't be afraid to ask for help

And remember: You are beautiful, no

matter what!
Important points
- there is never just one thing that causes
ED (environmental and emotional
factors)
- It appears more often than you think
- ED ≠ underweight
- Instagram is fun until it makes harm
- Not everything on IG is real
- Follow only content which makes you feel
good
 Sources
- BOWEL, Samantha. How Instagram causes Eating Disorders?. Eating
disorder hope [online]. 2022, 16.02. 2022 [cit. 2022-03-22]. Dostupné z:
https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/how-instagram-causes-eating-dis
orders

- ‘She opens the app and gets bombarded’: parents on Instagram, teens and
eating disorders. The Guardian [online]. [cit. 2022-03-22]. Dostupné z:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/12/instagram-eating-dis
orders-teen-girls-parents
- Cross, H., & Ross-Nash, Z. (2021, July). Instagram and disordered eating: The impact
creating social comparison. [Web article]. Retrieved from
http://www.societyforpsychotherapy.org/instagram-and-disordered-eating-the-impact-
creating-social-comparison
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