Instagram use is linked to increased symptoms of orthorexia nervosa

Pixie G. Turner · Carmen E. Lefevre

378 citations0/0 files storedEating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia Bulimia and Obesity

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Eating Disorders and Behaviors Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies

Abstract

PURPOSE: Social media use is ever increasing amongst young adults and has previously been shown to have negative effects on body image, depression, social comparison, and disordered eating. One eating disorder of interest in this context is orthorexia nervosa, an obsession with eating healthily. High orthorexia nervosa prevalence has been found in populations who take an active interest in their health and body and is frequently comorbid with anorexia nervosa. Here, we investigate links between social media use, in particularly Instagram and orthorexia nervosa symptoms. METHODS: We conducted an online survey of social media users (N = 680) following health food accounts. We assessed their social media use, eating behaviours, and orthorexia nervosa symptoms using the ORTO-15 inventory. RESULTS: Higher Instagram use was associated with a greater tendency towards orthorexia nervosa, with no other social media channel having this effect. In exploratory analyses Twitter showed a small positive association with orthorexia symptoms. BMI and age had no association with orthorexia nervosa. The prevalence of orthorexia nervosa among the study population was 49%, which is significantly higher than the general population (<1%). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the healthy eating community on Instagram has a high prevalence of orthorexia symptoms, with higher Instagram use being linked to increased symptoms. These findings highlight the implications social media can have on psychological wellbeing, and the influence social media 'celebrities' may have over hundreds of thousands of individuals. These results may also have clinical implications for eating disorder development and recovery.

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References

2013Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 2008Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM)2016ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND DEPRESSION AMONG U.S. YOUNG ADULTS 2016Instagram: Motives for its use and relationship to narcissism and contextual age 2014Canadian clinical practice guidelines for the management of anxiety, posttraumatic stress and obsessive-compulsive disorders 2011A tale of two sites: Twitter vs. Facebook and the personality predictors of social media usage 2016Social media and loneliness: Why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand Twitter words 2014What We Instagram: A First Analysis of Instagram Photo Content and User Types

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2018Exploring the relationship between frequency of Instagram use, exposure to idealized images, and psychological well-being in women.2019The relationship between social networking addiction and academic performance in Iranian students of medical sciences: a cross-sectional study 2019Orthorexia nervosa: A review of psychosocial risk factors 2023The social media diet: A scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image and eating disorders amongst young people

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