A few months after confinement, cases of eating disorders (ED) increased sharply in health centers. They would be linked to this government measure and to the increased time spent on social networks, which convey stereotypes related to body image.
In France, it is estimated today that one million people suffer from anorexia nervosa, bulimia or binge eating disorder, which are the three main eating disorders. According to health insurance figures, between 0.9 and 1.5% of women and 0.2 to 0.3% of men are affected. According to Valentin Flaudias, lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Nantes, 50% of these people do not get diagnosed.
A direct correlation between the increase in cases and the health crisis
According to Doctor Jean-François Viaud, head of the eating disorder unit at the Bordeaux University Hospital, six months after the first confinement, the increase in this type of disease could be clearly seen in the hospital. While eating disorders are often already apparent after three months, parents don’t start to worry until six months after the onset of the disease in their children. During confinement, many young people wanted to start a diet because they feared gaining weight with confinement, loss of activity, and the alteration of their habits. Without medical support, and on the contrary, by following the “support” and “advice” given by influencers without medical knowledge on social networks, the cases of TCA increase.
Social networks, ground for the development of self-confidence and image problems
Behind the hashtag #whatIeatinaday (“what I eat in a day”), there are countless images that encourage thinness, and which are disseminated on social networks among young people, who lack food education. Publications not only propagate unhealthy eating practices, but also manipulated or filtered body images that do not correspond to reality, nor to healthy bodies. Along with the increase in eating disorders, consultations for cosmetic procedures have followed the same trend. According to doctor Shadi Kourosh, users, pushed to look at themselves more often through a filter that hides imperfections in a way during confinement, suffered an alteration in the acceptance of the true self-image. This has generated heightened anxiety about appearance in many people. The increasingly photoshopped faces of influencers have been vectors of “dysmorphia”, a disorder of self-vision.
It is necessary to distance oneself from the image conveyed on social networks
Psychologist Valentin Flaudias encourages his patients with eating disorders to take a step back from social media. For this, it is necessary to carry out a self-assessment of the way in which the exposed person uses social networks, to identify their effects: which accounts are followed for pleasure, which accounts are followed mechanically? How much time is spent on social media each day? Is it possible to reduce this time? By limiting the time spent on these platforms, people who tend to view content that is not conducive to their mental health will not be locked into a circuit which, because of algorithms, could reinforce harmful content and trends.