The interview subject(s) of the following narrative has granted permission for this content to be shared as long as their identities are protected; all individuals referenced have been assigned pseudonyms. The pseudonym assigned to the interviewee is “Amelia Cornwall,” so she will be referred to as either “Amelia” or “Amelia Cornwall.”
Family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances. It’s hard to tell who’s who among all the chatter, but there is one aspect of the environment that is impossible to ignore: the smell of the delicious Italian food. As the aroma of breadsticks, pasta, and marinara sauce are wafting over, the waiter places a salad in front of Amelia. Eating disorders are defined as “behavioral conditions characterized by severe and persistent disturbance in eating behaviors and associated distressing thoughts and emotions” (“What are Eating Disorders?”). For Amelia, this took the form of many different behaviors: “I was tracking calories for everything that I was eating… I’d be eating one meal a day and because I had to in front of my parents otherwise, they’d be like, ‘What are you doing?’”
It’s 2017 and Amelia is lying in bed, scrolling through Instagram past countless pictures of girls on the beach, in their bikinis, flaunting their summer vacations. However, for Amelia, it seems as though they are showing off their perfectly toned, skinny bodies. “Social media is what had the greatest impacts like you see models and just people who are put in the spotlight, and you see their bodies and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, they look so good!’” Social media and pop culture have had an immense impact on the mental health of today’s youth. According to the American Medical Association (AMA), “alterations made through processes like Photoshop can contribute to unrealistic body image expectations, eating disorders and other emotional problems” (Diller 1). Seeing the beauty standard continuously shift to images of unattainable and unhealthy levels has convinced younger generations that they must attain what they perceive as the “perfect body” on social media and the internet. However, “for me personally, I…think…a [big] factor was the internet. Like, let’s say I needed a snack idea that was very low calorie, like ‘Oh, here it is.’ Like it gave me all the information I needed to keep fueling the eating habits and I feel like that was the biggest thing for me.” Even professionals admit that “airbrushing, digital alteration, and cosmetic surgery further increase the unrealistic nature of media images of women as standards for self-evaluation” (Thompson et al., 1999).
Hearing the crunch of the salad leaves in her mouth, Amelia tries to convince herself that she’s not that hungry and that she’s making the healthy decision for the best. “I was always a chubby kid until I started swimming at like beginning of middle school, and after that I’d lost a good bit of weight and I was like, ‘Oh, well I look so good!’ and I was getting toned and stuff.” But what she didn’t want to admit was that she was actually hungry, starving because she hadn’t had a proper meal in weeks and no matter how much she tried to convince herself, eating one meal a day wasn’t good for anyone.
During my recent interview with Amelia Cornwall, it became clear that she considers her illness and that of many others a call for people to realize the negative impacts of the availability of resources on social media. Amelia mentioned that in middle school, she used to swim a decent amount and that she began to eat healthier because of encouragement from her mother,
During that time, my mom was like on her whole ‘oh we’re gonna be healthy’ and so she’d make like new recipes and they’re all like salads and it fills you up in the moment but they were not calorie heavy, so I just got used to eating that, and I convinced myself that that was all my body needed, but I was swimming so much that my body definitely needed more energy than that.
Once high school had come around, Amelia could not find the time to exercise as much. “Going into freshman year I was still swimming a little, but nowhere near as much, so obviously my body isn’t going to look the same because I’m not at the same level of physical activity and so that’s when I was like, ‘What can I do to make my body look the same as it did before?’” She began to obsess over her weight and was not happy to see that she was not losing weight like she had earlier. “I was obsessed with weighing myself; I remember I was like 5’4” and 100 pounds and I just kept weighing myself because I just wanted to get down to two digits.” Amelia found the need to attain this goal by relying on the internet. She would research how to lose weight quickly, nutritional tips to lose weight, etc. just to obtain a beauty standard that was preventing her from accepting natural changes in her body. “Social media and all that did contribute because as you see yourself getting closer I guess to the stereotypical body image that you want to have, you’re like, ‘Oh, this is great!’, so it’s just like a whole cycle.”
This shows how, like Amelia’s eating disorder, social media and internet exposure begin innocently. “I didn’t realize that there was a problem with what I was doing cause like my parents didn’t see a problem with it and I thought I was doing good like I was being healthy… and that it was good for my body. I thought if my body looked skinny that meant that I was healthy and so I didn’t think there was any problem whatsoever … so I didn’t think I needed to address it or get help for it.” This could not be farther from the truth. All of the internet sources providing information on how to lose weight, foods that help weight loss, Victoria’s Secret models’ meals and workout regimens, though informational seems to place the younger generations under pressure to set body goals that are not only unattainable but also unhealthy to obtain and can be so severe as to cause death.
Amelia is aware that her illness was undiagnosed; however, she attributes her ability to diagnose herself with her eating disorder to the internet. “If I was hungry, I’d start munching on ice instead of actually eating food and if snacks weren’t healthy, I wouldn’t let myself eat it. Like I could really want ice cream, but I’d be like, ‘No, you’re not eating that.’” Looking to the internet, Amelia was able to realize that her behaviors, chewing on ice, counting calories, and eating one meal a day, were not normal behaviors; there was no definitive moment when she realized, it was more of a gradual realization. Amelia did not mention her eating disorder to anyone because she thought what she was doing was correct; she felt the need to starve herself to attain what she perceived as the newest beauty standard. Though she was constantly hungry, she justified her hunger because of the image in her mind of what beauty meant.
This lasted for almost two years, her first and second years of high school. However, Amelia did credit social media for her recovery. After almost two years of a self-diagnosed eating disorder, Amelia recalls seeing a significant amount of indirect support in the body positivity posts she would see on Instagram and other types of social media,
I feel like pop culture was more detrimental than social media because social media had the body positivity aspect as well; it helped me realize I didn’t need to look a certain way to be considered healthy. Social media helped with that [eating disorder] because it made me realize that was not the right behavior.
Seeing the immense support that she was receiving, Amelia was able to convince herself to treat herself correctly. It started out small: eating snacks when she felt hungry and slowly approached eating more than one meal a day.
Another aspect of this illness that Amelia mentioned was finding out that her friend had been suffering from an eating disorder as well. “I know one of my friends from high school had to go to rehab for her eating disorder.” Seeing how severe eating disorders could get, Amelia began to appreciate the fact that her illness hadn’t progressed to that level,
I think my eating disorder was very minimal; I like to consider it ‘disordered eating’ more than an actual disorder. I was just grateful that I was able to find out before I needed medical attention. It was through social media that I saw all this body positivity stuff that made me realize that my body doesn’t have to be a certain way for me to be pretty or to be considered beautiful. I realized I didn’t have to fit a standard.
Though it was not pleasing to find out about her friend’s illness, it did inform Amelia that she was not the only one who had been suffering; she admits it was an issue with her mindset: “Mainstream pop culture contributed to my mindset because I considered a certain physical appearance healthy, and I was holding myself accountable to that physical form.”
Clearly, social media and the internet in general contribute a significant amount to the mindsets and thoughts of today’s youth. Like Amelia, there are definitely more people who have suffered and are still suffering from eating disorders because of beauty standards they believe they need to attain to “fit in” with society’s expectations. However, Amelia’s experience vocalizes the negative and positive aspects of the availability of sources like social media and the internet. Body positivity and other information that helped Amelia realize her behavior wasn’t wrong is something that is saving many others from the same experiences as Amelia. Though it’s been almost four years since, Amelia still has intrusive thoughts sometimes: “The mindset is still something I struggle with. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m not going to eat one meal a day just because I feel bloated. So, the mindset is still there but I now realize that it is not healthy for my body to do that, so it doesn’t really get too terrible.”
According to Dr. Diller, a psychologist for The Huffington Post, “We need to question the unrealistic goals set not only by the distorted images in magazines but by those promoted through celebrity makeovers, reality shows and parents who undergo radical transformations through plastic surgery” (Diller 2). Like Amelia had previously mentioned, this aspect of pop culture was a major contributor to her eating disorder. A study conducted regarding women and beauty standards concluded that “women high in trait body dissatisfaction are at risk for experiencing even greater body dissatisfaction following exposure to thin-ideal images with warnings about the dangers of trying to look like the models” in comparison to men (Ata et al. 47).
Amelia, now eighteen years old and a first-year college student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is at the healthiest point in her life, both physically and mentally; she is eating all of her meals in a day, she is working out, and despite occasional intrusive thoughts, she is happy about her body. She is on the pre-medical track and actively pursuing a degree in Neuroscience. She hopes to one day go to medical school and become a doctor while advocating and counseling young girls about eating disorders and mental health in relation to the changing beauty standard.
Works Cited
Ata et al. “Effects of Exposure to Thin-Ideal Media Images on Body Dissatisfaction: Testing the Inclusion of a Disclaimer Versus Warning Label”. Body Image, vol. 10, 2013, pp. 34-52, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2013.04.004.
Cornwall, Amelia [pseudonym]. Teleconference interview with the author, 9. Apr. 2022
Diller, Vivian. “Is Photoshop Destroying America’s Body Image?”. The Huffington Post. 8 July 2011, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/photoshop-body-image_b_891095.
Thompson, J.K., et al. (1999). “Exacting Beauty: Theory, Assessment and Treatment of Body Image Disturbance”. American Psychological Association. 1999, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2005.00107.x.
“What are Eating Disorders?” American Psychiatric Association, Mar. 2021, https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/eating-disorders/what-are-eating-disorders.
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Signs Someone You Love Is Struggling With An Eating Disorder, https://www.advenium.com/blog-post/signs-someone-you-love-may-be-struggling-with-an-eating-disorder/.