Before delving into the complexities of the online world and its relation to prominent, modern-day health concerns, it is important to recognize eating disorders and online communities for what they individually represent.
Recently, online communities that encourage eating disorders have one thing in common: perpetuation.
The birth of the internet brought together a sub-community of people who showed signs of being bulimic or anorexic. Not only did it provide a platform to share the pros of such eating disorders, it also became a stage for encouragement where users who were not facing eating disorders encouraged such behaviour through frequent online interaction.
On Instagram, there are accounts dedicated to showcasing someone’s journey through anorexia or bulimia.
Throughout their series of pictures, people comment on this person’s great progress in their journey to lose weight.
It’s a seemingly innocent gesture; they simply want to encourage someone in their efforts to shed some pounds. But what they don’t realize is that they are perpetuating a mental illness.
They are unintentionally promoting self-harm that is wrapped in positive vibes and are doing more harm than good to someone else’s psyche.
The other issue in this scenario is that it’s often a never-ending cycle. One common way to counteract these online sub-groups is to start a movement of your own, one that condemns such extreme behaviour by shedding light on eating disorders as a mental illness.
That’s not to say that every person who wishes to lose or gain weight is indefinitely struggling with a mental illness. Everybody is different in what they wish to achieve for themselves but evidently, there are signs to watch out for in certain behaviours.
In anorexic patients, common traits are an intense fear of gaining weight and skipping out on important meal times during the day.
For those who are bulimic, they will often eat more than they can handle and then purge themselves of all that excess food by vomiting.
The internet is such an integral part of communication that its users are beginning to see the resulting effects of it on a person’s perception of themselves.
As it is, it’s difficult to avoid online advertisements, especially on social networking platforms such as Facebook and Instagram where advertisements show up almost constantly.
Many of the ads seen on social networking sites are geared towards the audience it’s most relevant to, so it’s no surprise that young women are subjected to dieting and cosmetic advertisements the most.
It’s not apparent at first, but a lot of body image perceptions come from this constant exposure to this “ideal” conception of beauty.
This inevitably leads to the growth of predominant mental health issues, namely anorexia and bulimia, which begin to fester among the youth.
When they are constantly seeing these examples of “true beauty” in the online sphere without being taught to be critical, it suddenly makes sense that young women become self-conscious and aware of their standing in society’s hierarchy of image.
Aleeza Khalid, Contributor
Featured image courtesy of Flickr
