Book Description
Despite seeming ubiquitous, social media has only been around for about 20 years. Many people around the world are now logging into social media communities, which are communities online where people can interact with others and share, create, and trade ideas and information (Ghaznavi & Taylor, 2015). While such communities can be useful, they have had a negative impact on the development of eating disorders. There has been growing understanding and increased interest in the complexity of eating disorders in recent years (Costa, Maroco, Gouveia, & Ferreira, 2016), and it is clear that social media and pro-eating disorder websites promote body idealized images that may influence the development of eating disorders, although media has had an impact on this issue prior to social media. While women are most often associated with the topic of eating disorders, men are also at risk. In addition, adolescents and children use the Internet more than other groups, so they are at a higher risk for being impacted by these websites. Beyond the United States, different cultures around the world have different body ideals and are also impacted by social media, but in different ways. The problems associated with the relationship between social media communities and eating disorders demands solutions. Both policy and practice are being developed, but there remains work to be done.
