Cyberbullying may cause disordered eating in younger teens

Encounters with cyberbullies often go hand in hand with texting and social media: Pew Research reports that nearly half of U.S. teens say they’ve been cyberbullied, most often about how they look. And it’s no secret our kids are glued to their devices. In fact, 95 percent of teens have access to smartphones, 90 percent to computers, and 80 percent to game consoles, according to Pew Research Center.

“Prior studies have shown that classic forms of bullying are risk factors for the development of eating disorders,” said Jason Nagata, the study’s author and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. “But little is known about modern forms of bullying, like cyberbullying, and risk for eating disorders.”

Even though the participants’ average age was 12 — one year younger than the required age to open a social media account — almost 10 percent said they had experienced some form of cyberbullying. The children who had been cyberbullied were twice as likely to exhibit disordered eating symptoms, such as worrying about weight gain, and also engaged in unhealthy behaviors to compensate, such as only eating low-calorie foods.

“The most common age of onset of eating disorders is in the adolescent period,” says Nagata. “So we want to really understand this sort of critical period that immediately precedes when many youth are at highest risk for developing eating disorders.”

Researchers looked at a sample of more than 10,000 kids ages 10 to 14 across the United States. The kids in the study were surveyed to see if they had been cyberbullied or had cyberbullied others online in texts or on social media. They were also screened for symptoms of disordered eating through questions such as, “Do you feel like your self-worth is tied to your weight?” and “In the past two weeks, how often have you been preoccupied with your weight or worrying a lot about being fat?”

Shaheen Shariff, who did not participate in the study, is a professor at McGill University and is known for her research on cyberbullying prevention. She isn’t surprised by the study’s results. “Health issues are a pretty prevalent aspect of cyberbullying or bullying,” Shariff says. “There’s so much unkindness and competition and demeaning kinds of comments online.”

For Nagata, the finding that tweens are already reacting to cyberbullying by engaging in disordered eating behaviors has implications as they grow. “Relatively speaking, these 12-year-olds will have much less social media use than 17-or-18-year-olds and older adolescents,” he says. “I actually do think that these findings could potentially be stronger in older teens.” He also notes that a separate study found that LGBTQ+ adolescents were three times as likely to be bullied and have higher rates of eating disorders.

Not only did cyberbullying victims report symptoms of disordered eating, but the kids who admitted to being bullies in the survey did, too. Shariff explains that the relationship between the bullied and bullies is complex: “A lot of the research shows that often perpetrators are also victims who have been targeted by cyberbullying or bullying.” So, kids who have been bullied about how they look put down someone else to make themselves feel better.

That cycle of victims becoming bullies is why Nagata says parents and caregivers need to be open with their children. “It’s really important that kids who have become victims [are] able to talk to a trusted adult or friend to process it, so that they’re not perpetuating the cycle.”

Nagata and Shariff say parents, who notice their teens fixating on weight, food or exercise in a way that impacts their quality of life, should consult a health-care provider — and that cyberbullying should be considered as a contributing cause.

Shariff also encourages parents and caregivers to talk with their kids about the superficial nature of what they see online. She suggests parents emphasize that even though influencers make it look as if they have fabulous lives, that doesn’t mean they’re truly happy. Instead of focusing on the external, she says, “What [kids] need to strive for is really getting to know themselves and what makes them happy … what do they enjoy doing, who do they enjoy being with, and to be happy with the body they have.”

Nagata says parents have the opportunity to be good role models for their children. “The biggest predictor of adolescent screen use is parents’ screen use,” he notes. That means if rules such as no phones at the dinner table or before bed are set, kids need to see adults do the same. Parents and caregivers should also give kids a safe space to talk about what they encounter online and how it makes them feel.

“It’s definitely not a one-size-fits-all solution,” Nagata says, acknowledging that there are no easy answers for parents. “But I do think that if parents are able to have open conversations with their kids about social media use, that their kids may be more willing to talk to them about it and get advice.”

Tracy Vonder Brink is the mother of two daughters and a freelance science journalist. She is a contributing editor for three children’s science magazines and in 2020 won the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award for Children’s Science News.