Sorry, Hot Girls Don't Tolerate Pro-ED Content in the Chat

Your only two goals for the summer should be to have fun and make Megan Thee Stallion proud

Jun 21, 2021

In the wise words of Ms. Diamonté Quiava Valentin “Saweetie” Harper: it’s a pretty bitch summer. Get lit, free drinks, fake numbers.

But because we can’t have nice things here at Emily For President, we have to talk about the dark underbelly that often accompanies the magical season of hot girl summer: the promotion of diet and eating disorder culture.

To be sure, this beast exists year-round, like a scar from the accidental second-degree sunburn you got when you fell asleep on your beach towel. However, as Alice Bodge recently said on Instagram, we often see a rise in pro-eating disorder language in the summer, especially as we begin to expose more of our bodies.

This week, I talked to Alice —resident smart hot girl who recently graduated from Emory University with a degree in Media Studies and is currently sitting on the beach every day fighting post-grad blues— about her research on the relationship between digital media and eating disorders, the role social media plays in how we view our bodies, and how to safely have a hot girl summer because we all deserve one after the last year and a half.

UMMMM YIKES???

In the age of social media, we are constantly surrounded by people even when we’re alone. And I’ll be the one to say what we’re all thinking in response to that: people suck.

As we discussed with Jane a few weeks ago, social media is the new medium setting forth unrealistic beauty standards for everyone but women especially. By the transitive property of these two facts (being surrounded by people + people setting forth impossible standards), it’s not an exaggeration to say social media has made us all feel bad about ourselves at some point in our lives.

But what happens when those bad feelings translate into action? Personally, I believe it makes Mark Zuckerberg liable to pay all of our therapy bills. It also can result in eating disorders dictated by the desire to change our bodies to look how we’ve convinced ourselves they should look.

I asked Alice to lay the groundwork, first by sharing a little about her research on and experience with eating disorders, and then how they currently affect our society:

Emily: Can you give everyone an overview of what your thesis was about? And if you're comfortable, would you like to talk about how you incorporated in your own experience?
Alice: My thesis, titled Digital Communities and the Cultivation and Normalization of Eating Disorders, combines sociological concepts with all things digital media.
To put it into basic words: I wanted to discuss the foundations of social media, and how we got to where we are today. To do that, I researched the creation of communities, elements of social media, and issues that have existed from print media to social media. It’s honestly so hard to surmise in a few sentences but I covered topics from self-objectification to influencers and microcelebrity culture, to algorithms, to Mukbangs on YouTube.
Digital media is literally anything that is non-print: video games, online photographs, YouTube videos, Reddit, tweets, videos, film, etc etc.
I am SO comfortable talking about my experience! I suffered from an ED for 2+ years. In these 2 years, I struggled with pretty aggressive EDs and body dysmorphia. I’d stare at my friend’s bikini photos on Instagram, or throw away a new shirt because it made me look “fat.” This absolutely sucked, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. However, I got to use my experience as an unofficial source to cite in my thesis so I’d often back up my arguments by citing my own experience with an ED.
I think I’d also like to preface this conversation with: I don’t think I’m better than anyone because of my recovery. I still struggle with my body image, and there are days I feel unworthy because I feel ugly. I still have bad days, too.
Emily: How prevalent are eating disorders right now? What are the stats you found in your research?
Alice: SO F***ING PREVALENT.
While EDs haven’t received the research they needed in the last few centuries, I’d argue that they’re at their worst today because of social media. It’s so hard to sum up in a few sentences, but social media is completely unprecedented. It’s an entirely new territory. While print media —think magazines, art, billboards— of course negatively impacted its viewers, social media is this infinite beast that is accessible and catering to you 24/7.
Print media can be avoided. It can be a monthly Playboy magazine, or driving by a model on a billboard. I’m not belittling the impact these have on viewers (research from the 1990s shows how badly people suffered from these beauty standards), but I am saying that social media is 24/7 and feeding you content constantly. When that content is skinny women, edited bodies, and dangerously tiny diets, it’s gonna mess you up. Everyone and their mother is on social media right now, so yeah, EDs are prevalent.
By age 20, approximately 0.8% Americans suffer from anorexia nervosa, 2.6% from bulimia nervosa, 3% from binge eating disorder, and 11.5% from feeding or an eating disorder not elsewhere classified.1 This was recorded in 2016, and doesn’t account for those who are undiagnosed which is a LOT of people.
If you count calories, get nervous around certain meals, exercise to “cancel out” calories, then you’re exhibiting signs of an ED.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, around 5% of the overall population lives with an eating disorder which is, in mathematical terms, not a small amount.

Offline, Out of Mind

I would be remiss not to bring back the results of the CNBC survey shared on The Daily Show: 80% of girls say they compare the way they look to others on social media, and 25% of girls say they don’t look good enough without photo editing. When we talk about photo editing, it’s not adding a VSCO filter (or, in my mom’s case, the Valencia filter on Instagram).

Photo editing can range from things like blurring out a pimple to fully modifying a body or face’s appearance on FaceTune. While this range allows for some positive edits (like when you self-tan to look good in your family’s Christmas card photo but then appear a little Trumpish next to your siblings so you have to add a little Oompa Loompa orange to their tones to neutralize the glaring effect of your Neutrogena spray… an experience I know nothing about), it also allows individuals to completely alter their appearance.

The disconnect between how we genuinely look and how we present ourselves online can have unsurprisingly disastrous consequences. Alice touched on that when I asked:

Emily: In what ways does social media directly impact users' body image?
Alice: I could honestly talk for hours about this.
Let’s not beat around the bush here: your friends and favorite supermodels are editing their bodies. The disappointment that I feel when I catch a friend on my feed shrinking her waist or making her butt bigger, is HUGE. If social media has affordances that make it constantly accessible and visible, then you’re constantly exposed to bodies that LITERALLY are not REAL.
Further, these edited, unrealistic bodies become the norm and beauty standard. So now, a bunch of users are trying to diet and work out in order to achieve a body that is not real.
I found a great study of adolescents and their reactions to highly liked media which showed that when viewing highly liked digital posts, adolescents showed higher activity in neural regions associated with reward processing.2 In addition, these adolescents also had high activity in “social cognition, imitation and attention.”3
To put into short words, kids pay attention to highly liked posts, and seek to imitate it in order to feel rewarded. The posts they’re imitating may impact their body image.

One of the topics Alice discusses in her thesis was the presence and prevalence of pro-eating disorder content on social media. Pro-ED content is not only content that explicitly discusses eating disorders (like actual eating disorder forums); it can be as simple as a comment structure that we then adopt into our regular conversations.

Emily: Can you talk a little about pro-ED content and what it may look like on social media?
Alice: Girl, yes. Pro-ED content is what inspired my entire thesis. It also is what normalized my ED, and made me feel like I wasn’t doing anything unhealthy. I conducted 4 case studies on different pro-ED content, from Mukbang comment sections to pro-ana blogs.
My favorite example of pro-ED content is the “me when I don’t eat and only drink iced coffee all day” meme. That is ED 101. That is hands down, 100% how I first started restricting. Thousands of people were making content like that online, and people in my life would joke about it too. When I say cultivate and normalize, this is exactly what I mean. It’s funny to only drink iced coffee, look at these funny jokes, look how we’re all starving and tweaking from caffeine!
Pro-ED content sucks because it can be so sneaky. People often think of pro-ana and pro-mia (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa) forums, but it can be as simple as an influencer posting her meals, or a girl showing her flat stomach off on TikTok.
Say there’s a skinny, conventionally pretty girl on your TikTok For You Page: the comments consist of “I guess I won’t eat today,” “my slow metabolism could NEVER,” “due to personal reasons I will not be eating anymore.” These comments always get high likes and are commonly seen on the platform. They’re normalized, they’re quirky, they’re funny— they promote EDs.
And of course, the classic pro-ana and pro-mia forums (I will not be linking any!) which outrightly discuss how to restrict, how to sneakily purge, and what foods are safe for weight loss. Pro-ED content is sadly everywhere now.

The issue with pro-ED content is how sneaky it is: how many times have we all said something along the lines of those TikTok comments to someone in our daily lives?

I also want to pause here to note one thing: I feel like we often talk about how eating disorders impact women when in actuality, eating disorders, like COVID, do not discriminate. According to the Center for Discovery, an organization that helps support eating disorder treatments, “the National Eating Disorders Association cites that 20 million women and 10 million men will have an eating disorder during their lifetime.”

Building off of this notion that only certain people are affected by eating disorders, I asked Alice:

Emily: I remember when we learned about eating disorders in school, there was such a stigma around them like they were dirty diseases that must be avoided at all costs. Yet, so many people are living with eating disorders or disordered eating and that stigma prevents people from talking with one another or seeking help. In your research and experience, what is the number one best way to take on this stigma with the people in your own life?
Alice: So true.
We need to normalize ED awareness, not pro-ED content and language. The simple answer is to be OPEN and candid about our experiences. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I’ve helped open conversations because I am so real about my experience. It sucked. It ruined 2 years of my life and did damage to my body, but there is nothing to be ashamed of.
Chances are, a ton of people around you are also suffering. Talking about it can actually save lives. 20% of individuals with diagnosed eating disorders die, not to mention those without diagnoses.4
Side note, but trauma is a huge indicator of ED development. One study found that 12-15 year olds with childhood trauma or mental illness were more likely to develop an ED. I personally developed one after a highly emotional situation in 2018.5

I feel like I shouldn’t need to tell anyone this but check in on your friends. If you cannot have the hard conversations —like those that could result in a life or death situation— you don’t have a friend: you have a People magazine and unresolved interpersonal connection issues.

But Wait, It Gets Worse! (But then it gets better after, don’t worry)

Since this has all been a little demoralizing, I thought maybe there must be something that we can all do to improve our relationship with social media:

Emily: Is there a way to have a healthy relationship with social media and with our bodies?
Alice: My easy answer: no. Social media is so bad for us.
However, social media is inevitable and intertwined with our real lives. It’s not as simple as “log off” when social media dominates pop culture, phrases, and jokes now. My advice is to stay vigilant and hold your friends accountable. If I feel myself staring at a girl’s bikini photo too long or scrutinizing my body in the mirror, that’s a sign to unfollow some accounts or log off for a few days. When I see a friend editing her body, I unfollow. No games played!!!
I’d also advise readers to question why they really use social media and create posts. I found that I used to post photos for validation and positive comments. My body image really rode on looking pretty in Instagram posts and pulling a few DMs once in a while.
Also, while you’re holding your friends accountable: hold platforms accountable. Pro-ED content on your FYP or YouTube videos that teach users how to restrict are NOT okay. Report videos and start conversations with your friends.

So that backfired a little.

Thinking specifically about summer since yesterday was the solstice (and not to deviate too far but some advice I stole from my Pattern app: set your biggest intentions of the year now because, with the solstice, we are in a period of immense personal power), I wanted to know how Alice thought we should best approach Saweetie’s summer bucket list:

Emily: How can we approach hot girl summer in a healthy way? What are some phrases or thought patterns to try and avoid or redirect?
Alice: The big answer is that hot girl summer doesn’t equate to dieting, taking photos for your feed, or receiving male validation.
I redirect this phrase by being my best self: eating fruits and veggies, stopping for spontaneous ice cream trips, biking with my friends. Hot girl summer is for the confident, kind and happy girls.
Throughout my recovery, the common phrase “I feel fat” was a huge thought pattern that I had to redirect. Oftentimes, both those with EDs and those who are just insecure don’t actually feel fat. Whenever I feel that way, I ask myself “what are you actually feeling?” Typically, feeling fat is a cover for anxiety, not feeling beautiful, or a little full/bloated. Fat is often a blanket term for any sort of undesirable feeling, I’ve found.
I also avoid any talk about diets, “skinny legend”, or forcing myself to workout. It’s just a toxic environment to be in. The fact is, missing one workout or going for ice cream with your mom will not actually impact your body— but forcing yourself will impact your mental health.
You can’t be hot if you’re sad :)

While we will most certainly have another far more extensive conversation about fatphobia later, I want to build off of Alice’s suggestions by challenging everyone who has one of those thoughts equating feeling or being fat with being bad or undesirable to ask yourself why: why do you feel like those two are entwined? Why are you telling yourself “fat” is something bad to avoid?

Then, take yourself out of your body and do one of my favorite pastimes: blame misogyny and capitalism.

Challenging your internalized fatphobia is not easy but really, what is these days? Recognize you’re not alone, not necessarily at fault, and not simply just your body (ps. I’m still trying to learn this, too).

Miss, For a Smile

I wanted to end on a more positive note, so I asked Alice:

Emily: Are there any accounts or resources you can recommend that push back against stigmas, beauty and body standards, and pro-ED content?
Alice: Yes yes yes!
I follow a few creators who helped my recovery so much. YouTuber Rebecca Jane, Instagram account @wakeupandsmelltherosay, and YouTuber Grackle. Grackle isn’t ED based, but she loves food and has a great energy.

I wanted to give a massive thank you to Alice for not only answering all of these questions today but for walking me through her thesis when she so lovingly opened her home to me last month.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) offers multiple helpline options. You can chat, call, or text someone to seek out resources and treatment options, or just have someone to talk to.