Women who spend time on TikTok are at a greater risk of disliking their own bodies and feeling worse about their appearance — especially if they’ve been exposed to pro-anorexia content, a study published Wednesday suggests. Australian researchers surveyed 273 women ages 18 to 28 from July 2021 to October 2021 about their TikTok use. As part of the study, the participants were then shown what was referred to as “pro-anorexia,” also known as “pro-ana,” images.
The study found that the women surveyed had a negative body reaction after as little as 10 minutes viewing content on TikTok. “Because disordered eating content is so prevalent on TikTok, there was also the possibility that TikTok users in our study would be somewhat inoculated [to] its effect but that certainly was not the case,” Rachel Hogg, senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at Australia’s Charles Sturt University, said in an email to NBC News. Hogg and her colleague Madison Blackburn conducted the study.
The new findings add to previous research about the potential risks of social media when it comes to young women and body image. Common Sense Media , a group that studies how media and technology influences kids and families and the British advocacy nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate have highlighted similar concerns about TikTok in recent research. Meta, the parent company of Instagram, also came under scrutiny in 2021 after an explosive Wall Street Journal report found that the c.