Young people are spending hours a day on their phones. At multiple times throughout the day, they are at risk of being exposed to negative promotion of diet culture and eating disorders.
Around ten years ago, Tumblr was infamous for its promotion and cultivation of eating disorders. With time, these practices have been bashed and countered with the body positivity movement that started online, and eventually spread to mainstream media.
Although on the surface it seems as though we have moved away from this as a society, new social media platforms (in particular TikTok) have been re-establishing disordered ideals in terms of body image, with a lot of popular creators posting ‘what I eat in a day’ videos and showing off their thin, conventionally attractive bodies.
Recovery pages are pushing back against this resurgence of ‘pro-ana’ content. I spoke to Svenne, a 21-year-old hairdresser and owner of a recovery TikTok account that has amassed over 42,000 followers and 4.6 million likes.
Svenne’s content has inspired many around the world, providing helpful and relatable content for those who wish to recover from their eating disorder. She responds to many commenters looking for help and also has her direct messages open for anyone that would like to vent, ask for advice, or even just have a chat.
“I don’t use Instagram anymore as a recovery account but I do use TikTok,” Svenne explains, adding that content creation has been useful in her own personal journey with an eating disorder. “I kind of put my struggles and emotions into it. I’m not really a good talker, so making videos really does help me.”
Instagram was an especially toxic place for Svenne to document her recovery, due to many people ‘still being very sick’ when posting – therefore creating harmful content for other people with eating disorders to engage with. Posting numbers such as weight and calories can be very damaging to a person that is trying to move away from diet culture, and accounts promoting eating disorders tend to include these aspects a lot.
Despite all prominent social media platforms displaying a warning when searching for ‘pro-ana’ content, you are still able to click past it and see what people have been posting. Svenne, like many others, feel that this is not sufficient deterrence for ill people.
“I don’t think that’s enough. I think for the people who post about that kind of stuff: please think about it before posting, it’s not helpful. Even though you’re sick you can still think realistically for other people. You know what will trigger you, so you know what will trigger others.”
Looking to the future, it is clear that something needs to be done in order to block this negative eating disorder content from social media – it is a long-time phenomenon that causes people to spiral downwards in their mental illness.
Eating disorder charity ‘Beat Eating Disorders’ also advocates for the banning of such content online. Their Director of External Affairs stated on their website that “social media platforms should do more to ensure such content cannot be posted in the same way as Instagram is now cracking down on images of self-harm.”
With continued campaigning, this issue may finally come to an end. But as we have learned from TikTok creators such as Svenne, it is important to engage in positive content for recovery and maybe even come off of social media platforms that are triggering.
For more information on Beat Eating Disorders click here.
Follow Svenne on TikTok here!