Social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have the audience of everyone in the world. More engagement online being exposed to so much content of unrealistic images creates low self esteem and bad eating habits. With freedom to post whatever you want, has the consequences of who’s gonna see it.

There are huge negative impacts on mental health from constant exposure to idealized images from the diet culture given in the media. The diet culture glorifies thinness promoting restrictive eating patterns. People on social media feed off of validation for being thin, perceived as perfect and that goes in exacerbating body image issues from going as far as disordered eating to reach that “perfect” look the media has created.

Through statistics it’s shown that there’s been a rapid jump from 0.5 to 9% because of the usage of social media. “According to the DSM, 1.2% of male teenagers between 11 and 19 and 5.7% of female teenagers struggle with eating disorders”. Having social media comes with filters, editing of images, and more that create an illusion of a “perfect body” harming the self esteem’s of others therefore feeding into

Social media platforms have a lot of positive factors, but even when it’s expressed how toxic the promotion and how easily created eating disorders are nothing has been changed, or prevented that from stopping. Celebrities & influencers are looked up on by so many and are a part of why so many young people suffer through and levels of eating disorders have spiked throughout the years from unidealized images created by them.