By Alexis Corbin and Alanna Levine
Names of some sources have been withheld to protect their privacy.
The Internet has become a dangerous world for those with low self-esteem and eating disorders. ED, Ana, and Mia are the unfortunate triad that encourages people to “skip one more meal” or “experience guilt after eating.” Many websites have personified eating disorders to connect with teenagers: ED stands for eating disorders, Mia for bulimia, and Ana for Anorexia. With the Internet’s ability to reach thousands of people, blogs and websites have increased the risks for teenagers to develop unhealthy lifestyles.
While online, teens are constantly exposed to pop-ups of skinny models and links to pro ED blogs that can ultimately prove threatening to mental and physical stability. Popular social media platforms such as Tumblr and Twitter can also have an impact.
A Jericho High School junior said, “My entire life I’ve struggled with weight issues. I recently became a member of Tumblr, which is a popular website for teens where you can re-blog pictures of anything you can imagine. I find that lots of people on Tumblr post ‘thinspiration.’ It’s pictures of very skinny people and even pictures of anorexic people. Not eating is obviously a thought that has crossed my mind because of all of the influence from social media. It’s something that I think about every day, and social media makes that a lot harder for me because it’s constantly in my face.”
President of Nutrition in Motion, P.C., Christina Rivera examines the dangers of being exposed to social media. She explained how the media is “presenting this image to young women and young men that, in order to be happy, popular and healthy, you have to be a certain size and look a certain way.”
Jericho High School social worker Todd Benjamin explained the effect that the media has on eating disorders.
“The society that we live in really does emphasize, ‘You can’t be too thin, too perfect or too rich,’ so I think there is a lot of pressure for kids to look a certain way, and therefore many of them resort to destructive decisions about their eating.”
A second Jericho senior said, “I went through this period of intense self-loathing due to my weight issues. I binged and purged a couple of times, and I used to only eat 200 calories a day. A lot of that came from social media and pop culture. I would use pictures of skinny celebrities to motivate myself to exercise more and eat less.”
Another senior who felt pressured to lose weight by the pictures she saw on social media said, “Everyone is so skinny, even the girls in our school. I was trying not to eat and basically starve, and at one point I would just throw up a lot.”
Fortunately, Jericho High School staff already have means for helping adolescents struggling with eating disorders, and any student who would like to take advantage of these services is welcome in the guidance office.
