back to article Facebook causes eating disorders in teenage girls

A survey carried out in Israel shows that the more time young girls spend on Facebook the more likely they are to develop an eating disorder. The evil health consequences of overindulging oneself on the globo-dominant social webbening site were unmasked by profs Yael Latzer and Ruth Katz of Haifa uni's Faculty of Social …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Paul 139
    Stop

    Causation or correlation

    The original report declines to discuss. Does anorexia cause facebook-use ? We should be told....

  2. Annihilator
    Stop

    So..

    Roughly the same bollox story that was release nearly a year ago claiming Facebook was causing STDs?

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/26/1

  3. Rob 101

    Um.. Cause and effect

    Did they not consider that people with poor self image issues in the first place were more likely to use non-face to face socialisation methods?

    It's not a big leap.

    In breaking research it has been proven that trees waving about a lot causes strong wind.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Yeah, this is arse backwards.

      You can also use facebook to quickly accrue hundreds of 'friends', presumably a big confidence booster to someone with self esteem issues.

      The facebook use is just another symptom rather than a cause.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Need to keep a look out

    My wife seems to spend an increasing amount of time "facebooking" ... now I know the dangers of it leading to anorexia etc I'll need to keep a look out for any tell tale signs of weight loss ... well, been no sign of problems in that department in recent years :-)

    1. Elmer Phud
      Coat

      possible sexist remark warning

      We have a similar problem here.

      It is possible that the cause of the weight loss is due to the fact she ain't doing no cooking and the rest of the family haven't worked out the microwave controls yet.

      (yes, deliberatly mis-read for effect and the possible sexist remark countered by the inept nature of the rest of the household's members, but I ought to put this bit even lower down to encourage more mis-reading by others)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: Need to keep a look out

      My wife also has self image issues since "facebooking", she now wants better breasts, I suggested she takes a small piece of tissue paper and rub it between her breasts twice a day to enlarge them (it seems to have worked for her arse).

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Really?

    I've been noticing the opposite, the age at which bingo-wings set in seems to be early twenties, at least in my friends list!

    Given the levels of obesity which the USA has reached, and the UK seems desperate to equal, anything which can restrain the trend (and waistline) should be welcomed!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      A healthy average doesn't make a healthy population

      You can't balance out half the population being overweight by making the other half underweight. That just makes everyone unhealthy! Eating disorders are serious mental disorders, with anorexia being one of the most fatal mental illnesses.

  6. David Lawrence
    WTF?

    And in other news.....

    ....banging your head against a wall can lead to headache and even brain injury. Tom Logan from the institute of Research in Reading also discovered that walking in front of cars can be hazardous to health.

    I'm already bored with this 'Facebook killed by hamster' stuff.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      by or my?

      if only the solution to the facebook menace were really that simple.

      but yeah standard newspaper correlation vs causation cockup.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A title is required

    I can't help but feel that this comes from the same school of "trusted science" as astrology.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In related news...

    ...the vainer you are the more likely you are to have self-regard issues.

    "All is vanity", Marcus Aurelius.

    1. peter 5 Silver badge
      Megaphone

      Marcus Aurelius? Pah!

      Ecc 1.2: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

  9. ChaosMan
    Joke

    Correlation != Causation

    This says it all really:

    http://xkcd.com/552/

  10. James Hughes 1

    Only last night

    I was in a restaurant, and on the next table a couple with there approx 20yr old daughter. The whole time I was in there, she had two phones on the go, contantly relating what was happening to her awestruck parents. Firstly, I'm surprised she had time to eat anything with the constant attention on the phones, then she ordered the Lamb Chiang Mai, but with no lamb.

    Madness I tell you, madness,

  11. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Good for the economy

    Whatever the cause this is exactly what we need to get the economy back on track: people who feel bad about themselves are more likely to indulge in persistent retail therapy or perhaps even expensive medical treatment.

    This message has been brought to you by the Amalgamated Association of Shop Owners and Doctors.

  12. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    Hold on....

    ...might some truth in this!

    I don't like FB, I don't use it and I'm a fat git...although the teenage girl variable is the only obvious missing bit here!

  13. GeorgeTuk

    How to be a Professor (modern times)

    1) Let me add Facebook in the title of my thesis

    2) Send to BBC

    3) I am automatically given airtime, possible TV appearance

    4) Two interviews on the BBC and I can call myself an analyst

    Job done.

    1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      News & Social Networking

      It ain't just the BBC it's almost all the current affairs meeja.

      Any story will get more coverage if you can shoehorn Twitter or Facebook into it. Actually it seems that Twitter is in the meeja ascendant at the moment, Facebook's news value seems to be falling unless somebody dies or goes missing.

      A couple of years ago we would see stories like "Facebook Campaign Causes Government U Turn" in the red tops or on ITV. The slightly more upmarket meeja would tend to be a little more honest with "Government U Turn After Facebook Campaign" allowing, only slightly, for the possibility that the Facebook campaign may not have caused the U Turn. These days it's more likely to be Twitter.

      Facebook seems to make the news if somebody dies or goes missing. It's not usually in the headlines, but every story on a missing person seems to contain the lines "family and friends have set up a group on Facebook to find them". Then of course every time a death makes the news we hear that somebody has set up the Facebook equivalent of a book of condolence for those too lazy to go and sign the real thing.

  14. Locky

    I seem to recall...

    that fashion mags used cause these, as did TV stars, and movie stars, and anything else girls like to do.

    /sweeping generalisation

    Maybe it's just that girls cause girls to have eating disorders....

    /end generalisation

  15. HooHah!
    FAIL

    Teenage girls....

    Feh. Being a teenage girl causes eating disorders in teenage girls.

    1. YumDogfood

      Failing...

      ...to stuff you face with enough pies causes death. Failing to breath also found to be dangerous.

      Being a teenage girl causes all kinds of disorders in parents as well, tell me about it! I'm praying for a boy next time, at least he will only paint his room black and hibernate in there during those years (please, please let him steal my Heavy Metal/Indie/Goth CD collection and not listen to Justin Beeper type crud). BTW, any word on the real big number self inflicted kiddy killer and not "hurted feeellinz": Suicide. (~21 per 100K in the USA) No? I wonder why...

  16. Captain Underpants
    Thumb Down

    Evidently today is Confuse Correlation With Causation Day

    Between this load of nonsense and the "ZOMG! FAST FOOD MAKES KIDS STUPID AND THERE COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED" guff published by Bristol University recently (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12381041 and http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/documents/pr-junk-food-and-iq-jan-11.pdf) it's evidently "Confuse Correlation With Causation Day".

    *sigh*

  17. James 5
    Unhappy

    A bit like the report on the Beeb..

    .. this morning where it seems that kids who eat lots of junk food in their formative years "become" less intelligent.

    Of course - the research didn't consider that they may eat "junk" food because of their social background and therefore there may be many other factors in their lack of intelligence.

    Junk food (physical garbage) = Facebook (virtual garbage) ?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Causal Link

    So the study showed that teenage, female facebook users are more likely to suffer from eating disorders that a control group. I don't doubt those findings. What I do doubt is that there is a causal link between facebook use and eating disorders.

    There is almost certainly a causal link between peer pressure and eating disorders. So would it make more sense to say that teenage girls who are more susceptible to peer pressure are more likely to use facebook than those who are less susceptible to peer pressure?

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Let them be

      Anyways, we all know that daylight makes Sun hot and shiny (if you don't believe me, just look at the sky at night - won't see any sun!).

    2. Phil Hare 2
      Thumb Up

      100% correct

      This is exactly the same sort of "science" that gave us the MMR scare.

  19. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    "rid us of this scourge?"

    That's a bit harsh on teenage girls. Did you get turned down, Lewis?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like