Addictive behaviors surrounding social media could lead to binge eating

In a previous interview with Contemporary Pediatrics, Susan Carnell, PhD, explained details of a study she co-authored titled, "Concurrent and prospective associations of social media usage with binge eating symptoms in early adolescence," published in Obesity.¹

Carnell is an associate professor in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.²

"The reason we did this study is because we were interested to understand more about the effects on social media," Carnell previously said. "We were particularly interested in eating disorders because we know that there is potential for social media to impact mental health, but perhaps particularly eating disorders, because of the certain content to do with social comparison, which could lead to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating."

The study utilized data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a large-scale, longitudinal project conducted across 21 sites in the United States. "They recruited a large number of children when they were 9 to 10 years old, and they've been following them every year," Carnell said. "We were able to use this data to look at the relationship between social media use, and we looked at both time spent using social media and also addictive behaviors around social media."²

Results demonstrated that time spent on social media by itself was not directly associated with binge eating, though individuals with high levels of addictive behaviors surrounding social media at baseline were 3.5 times more likely than those who had no addictive behaviors to develop binge eating by 14 to 15 years of age.²

In the above video, Carnell explains, "I think our results suggest that there are some children who may be particularly vulnerable to the addictive nature of social media, which is kind of designed to make us want to keep clicking, or perhaps to binge eating, or perhaps to a third factor which could influence both, like anxiety or depression, which could lead to both of these behaviors."

"So I think our results suggest that those might be the things to key in on, perhaps even more than overall time spent on social media, which might be okay for some kids, but maybe more problematic for others," said Carnell.

Click here to watch Carnell explain initial study details, reason for the study, and the first video in this series with Susan Carnell, PhD.

References:

1.Shi X, Duck SA, Jansen E, et al. Concurrent and prospective associations of social media usage with binge eating symptoms in early adolescence. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2024; 1-10. doi:10.1002/oby.24199

2. Fitch, J. Social media use and binge eating in early adolescence. Contemporary Pediatrics. January 6, 2025. Accessed January 9, 2025. https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/view/social-media-use-and-binge-eating-in-early-adolescence