A green, fuzzy caterpillar moves along the leaves as nature’s tiny dreamer. Each day, the creature stores energy bit by bit towards a “beautiful” future, meaning color, floating through the steam of gentle breezes, and being admired by the people below. When their chrysalis hatches, their wings are the caterpillar‘s battle scars, symbolizing all the determination and strength it garnered in the past. But when the wings break, and the colors start to spill out, what really matters in the end?

Anorexia is defined as a medical condition of an obsession with the prolonged avoidance of food. But to many, it’s nothing close to a medical condition. It‘s a lifestyle, consisting of the importance of control. Isolation. Discipline. Food reeks of poison, and the plate is a battlefield where freedom and fear clash. And behind all these motives exists a different world online that triggers these disorders: social media.

Adolescents are faced with a high level of self-consciousness during puberty, becoming increasingly and dangerously sensitive to the realities of physical and hormonal changes. At the same time, social media has become highly saturated with a growing trend of body image, mostly occupied by adolescents who share content that triggers critical psychological consequences. What is especially dangerous about self-conscious adolescents on social media is that they severely lack awareness and concern regarding health and well-being. They purely feed into the pleasure and comfort that a group of people with similar struggles brings. It is rather easy for one to see that the actions that anorexia patients engage in are abnormally dangerous. However, because of the evolving state of teenagers, they are unable to see this side of the picture, and anorexia becomes a shocking 5 to 10 times more fatal in this population.

A study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine chose a total of ,1765 young adults, in which they utilized a logistic regression. Ultimately, the results indicated that “participants in the highest quartiles for social media volume and frequency had significantly greater odds of having eating concerns.” (National Library of Medicine). Moreover, in another study, a researcher examined approximately 1,000 teenagers with a mean age of 13 about social media and eating behaviors, where results indicated that teens with social media were more likely to excessively exercise, skip meals, and develop weight concerns. These results unveil the connection between adolescent egocentrism and social media exposure, which suggests that heightened self-awareness and the desire for social media acceptance may increase the predisposition to appearance-based pressures online.

In my opinion, because the usage of social media has significantly increased towards even younger generations, I doubt that the concern of body image triggered by views online will fail to diminish, but rather do the opposite. However, a better future is not inevitable. I believe that the way in which teenagers absorb and view these types of content online can be regulated through education and parental supervision. Open conversations about body image and unique individualities can encourage teenagers to prioritize their health over something so trivial as a phone screen.

<Rachel Kim 학생기자 로스알라미토스 고교 11학년>