SOCIAL MEDIA WARNING
ONLINE WORLD FUELS EATING DISORDERS
BULIMIA survivor Nicole Riddle has been recovering from the eating disorder for more than 12 years.
She lived with it between the ages of 19 and 21 — in a time social media was nowhere near the juggernaut it is now.
The 35-year-old Hamlyn Heights mum of two remembers someone in her recovery group mention pro-anorexia websites, but it was “so long ago that social media wasn’t like it is now”.
She said it would “absolutely” have had a negative impact on her mentally, had platforms like Instagram and Facebook been ubiquitous when she was living with bulimia.
She described the social media age as “so in your face”.
“People are putting themselves in a position to try and achieve the unachievable and will fail,” she said.
“I find social media is not good for my head, even as a recovered person, because it makes you look and think, well, I don’t look like that.
“I accept this is my body now.”
Butterfly Foundation chief executive Christine Morgan said anecdotally, orthorexic and orthorexic behaviours were on the rise, as the “clean eating” lifestyle is widely spruiked online.
Orthorexic is defined as an obsession with eating healthy food. “We’re all sort of being bombarded with this messag- ing about … clean eating,” Ms Morgan said.
She said the heavily filtered world of social media was particularly unhealthy.
“Most damagingly, no one sends an image without touching it up … every time you do that, you’re kind of subliminally reminding yourself the raw material’s not good enough,” Ms Morgan said.
Luckily, Geelong is well-positioned in the fight against eating disorders.
Ms Riddle said she believed Geelong was at “the forefront of regional cities” in terms of providing help.
Dr Russell Golden is director of the Proactive Recovery Enhancement Program at The Geelong Clinic, which is also home to the Learn to Eat at Peace treatment program.
PREP, an innovative fivebed program, runs at capacity, and has cared for patients from as far as interstate.
It was established in mid-2017, and the patient satisfaction rate was “very favourable”, Dr Golden said.
“We’ve had group discussions around the danger of social media and hopefully that message is getting across,” he said. “In terms of patients’ own stories, the narrative overwhelmingly is that they’ve been heavily influenced by social media.
“There is specific focus placed on self acceptance and normalising healthy self reflection and body image, so when they encounter ... media images, they hopefully are better prepared.”