Influence of Social Media on Body Dissatisfaction in Adolescents and Increasing Risk of Developing Eating Disorders: A Systematic Review - Abstract
We always had the concept of perfect images – society has always influenced the way people should look, so body dysmorphia due to social beauty standards has always been around. These perfect images seem to have a deep impact in the adolescent’s relationship with their body thus leading to maladaptive behaviors: restrictive dieting, excessive exercise and vomiting. Since the main source of these rule models resides in social media it was mandatory to further explore the part of social media in body dissatisfaction and eating disorders among teenagers.
By reviewing 12 different papers about body dissatisfaction, social media and eating disorders we attempted to further explore this complicated relationship and to reunite information that indeed corroborates the theory that social media has a deep impact in increasing numbers of eating disorders among adolescents.
After our search review we concluded that there is a positive association between social media, body dissatisfaction in teenagers and eating disorders. Plus, this phenomenon is being increasing in numbers for a few years and it peeked after COVID-19 and the lockdown.