The Business of Body Hatred: How Meta Profits (Again) from Eating Disorders
Blame it on the algorithm.
It’s a sentiment most are familiar with in this age of clickbait, doom-scrolling, and digital footprints. The machinations of content dissemination to target audiences for profit have largely been regarded with a healthy dose of suspicion but ultimately accepted as a necessary evil: an inevitable byproduct of the conveniences and tech frills that accompany the age of information.
In 2021, the Facebook Papers painted a devastating picture of the lengths the social media giant had gone to for profit – and the harm that occurred as a result. This group of internal documents, leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen, offered proof of the company’s willingness to not only allow pro-eating disorder content, but to intentionally encourage vulnerable populations to view it. Facebook, Haugen said, had gone to great lengths to hide “disturbing” research about how its use of the algorithm to promote such content led to teenagers’ heightened feelings of negativity about their bodies and increased their risk of developing deadly eating disorders.1 Investigations revealed that the company had been struggling to engage young people–and that attracting them with dangerous pro-eating disorder content was part of a larger strategy to retain them as members of a core audience. Documents surfaced that proved Haugen’s claims that the company was well aware of the harm being caused, while continuing to perpetuate it.
Despite these damning revelations and a slew of lawsuits in 2021 and 2022, not much has changed. Targeted weight-loss ads are quite literally everywhere–even for those who have used ad preferences to indicate they do not wish to see such content. I currently work with someone who has shared that they’ve seen a huge uptick in weight loss and food restriction advertisements on their feed in the last month alone, despite having spent years reporting and blocking such content, as well as tailoring their ad settings against it.
With recent advancements in AI technology, the algorithm is only getting sneakier. Women who have announced their engagements on social media, for example, have suddenly found themselves inundated with targeted weight-loss ads that are specific to brides, using phrases such as “shredding for the wedding” and “intermittent fasting for your big day.”2 The nonprofit organization Fairplay for Kids, which fights child-targeted marketing, released a report in 2022 that accused Meta of marketing weight loss to children as young as nine, through accounts tagged with “thinspiration” or “bonespiration” and obviously promoting disordered eating. The report found that out of the 1.6 million unique users following these accounts, many followed each other, too, which creates a “pro-eating disorder bubble”, or feedback loop, “that is worth at least $1.8 million per year for Meta, and the revenue generated from all users following this bubble is $227.9 million per year.”3
All this points to a clear need for regulation over algorithmic technology, which experts are currently calling for.4 In the meantime, Fairplay for Kids is helping people like you get involved. Click here for an easy way to contact your representatives about supporting legislation to help protect people under 18 from developing eating disorders as a result of social media marketing!
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1 “The Facebook Papers and their Fallout.” The New York Times, 25 Oct 2021.
2 Khan, Aamina Inayat. “How Targeted Weight Loss Ads Can Haunt Future Brides.” The New York Times, 19 Nov 23.
3 “To help prevent eating disorders, regulate social media algorithms, expert says.” Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 27 Apr 2023.
4 Monahan, David. “New Report Shows Meta Profits from Pushing Pro-Eating Disorder Content to Children on Instagram.” Fairplay for Kids, 14 Apr 2021.
Workplace Food and Body Liberation
Picture this….you go into the mailroom and see a bag of cookies that somebody left for everybody. There are also a couple of your work colleagues there. You all are surrounding the plate of cookies. Then the comments start. “Ohhh I want one but I need to work out first”. “I am trying to lose weight so no cookies for me”. “ I am not doing sugar right now." Then you all start talking about your workplace wellness program and how you, “should all take a walk together right now and move away from the cookies.”
The problem with this scenario is that it’s commonplace. It’s not regulated. It has become acceptable. It’s assumed you are trying to “help” each other. But this is diet talk and is quite harmful. Also, it doesn’t feel good for anybody here.
Food Shaming In the Workplace
This is such a common occurrence. I hear it from individuals in the workplace time and time again.
Let’s start by answering what food shaming or guilting is.
Food shaming happens when another person judges or criticizes what another person eats. It can cause guilt, stress, and embarrassment to the person receiving the comment.
These judgments around what we should and shouldn’t eat stem from diet culture which is intersected with racism and other forms of oppression. And diet culture takes on a mindset that being thin matters above all else.
Some Examples of Food Shaming:
- "Wow, that’s a healthy serving."
- "Your plate looks like it could feed an entire family."
- "Woah, did you work out or something?"
- "Is that your whole meal? You’re already so thin."
- "That looks terrible. What is it?"
The story I shared in the beginning happens all the time. And yet, it’s not considered inappropriate or harassment. The problem is, it is.
The next time you decide to make a comment about what someone’s eating, ask yourself why. Take some time to think about how diet culture is impacting you.
Work needs to be a space where your colleagues can thrive… without diet culture looming in.
Weight Discrimination in the Workplace
Food shaming is not the only challenge in the workplace. Weight discrimination in the workplace is a serious problem.
Weight discrimination is real... and it’s harmful. And not okay.
When we judge people for their weight, it leads to other assumptions.
In 2017, 500 hiring professionals were shown a photo of a large-bodied woman by researchers at the job site Fairygodboss and asked if they would hire her. Only 15.6% of them said they would — and 20% said they thought she was “lazy.”
Furthermore, 21% of large-bodied individuals felt they had been passed over for a job or promotion because of their weight.
Both weight discrimination and food shaming are rampant issues… largely due to wellness programs.
Wellness is a new concept. It’s a broad term that seems to be a catch-all. And yet, it’s creating a lot of harm.
These weight-loss and wellness programs pressure employees to restrict their eating and sometimes over-exercise.
I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like wellness to me. It is actually quite harmful.
Be Part in Creating an Inclusive Thriving Workforce
We are at work for such a large proportion of our waking hours. Our ableist work demands continue to increase. Yet the pressures of work demands make it difficult to eat away from our desks.
We want a work environment where we celebrate food, movement, and each other. We are already pressured by work demand. We do not need to add the pressures of diet culture to our work.
So how do we combat these challenges in the workplace?
Let’s be part of needed change…
If you see these challenges in your workplace, bring them to the attention of a leader at your organization.
Urge them to address these issues. If they don’t know how to do that, share resources for experts who can help.
I am deeply passionate about addressing these issues in the workplace.
In my Workplace Food and Body Liberation Workshop, you will:
- Learn about diet culture and how it impacts your work setting
- Explore your own weight stigma biases in a safe space
- Discover how to build a workplace culture that is connected and empowered to make changes in a way to create food and body liberation
Who this is for:
- Companies
- Nonprofits
- Small Business Owners
- Communities
- Organizations
Schedule Your Call Today:
You Don’t Need to have Bulimia or Anorexia to Have an Eating Disorder
You may be thinking, I don’t have an eating disorder. I don’t keep myself from eating food. I don’t throw up any of my food. So I’m okay.
But are you really ok? I recently spoke with a friend of mine who knows I work in the eating disorder space. She shared, “Marcella I just had an epiphany. I have an eating disorder. While I’m not throwing up my food nor am I avoiding eating food, I am struggling.”
“I find myself obsessing about working out. I hate the number on the scale even when I feel good. I struggle to eat certain foods because they have sugar in them. I find myself working out even when I’m exhausted because I’m afraid of weight gain. I am constantly aware of how I look.”
“I find myself comparing myself to others all the time. It’s exhausting. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. And I know it’s hurting my health. I’m getting injured all the time. I’m not eating enough to sustain my workouts. I need to figure this out.”
Perhaps you can see a bit of yourself in my friends' very vulnerable share.
This is why I want to bring more awareness to eating disorders. Because I believe that more people in our country and around the world are suffering and not realizing they have an eating disorder.
We live in a toxic diet culture. Diet culture attaches our worth and value to thinness. Diet culture actively encourages eating disorders by prescribing and praising restriction, excessive exercise, calorie tracking, food labeling, weight monitoring and just being hyper-vigilant about everything we eat and how much we weigh. Diet culture blames, criticizes and shames bodies that are different in any way.
Diet culture abusively demands that we work towards a privileged body by any means. If we do not work towards a privileged body and/or do not achieve it, diet culture says we deserve any negative outcome, including any harm that comes to our bodies. Diet culture is so thoroughly manipulative that it has become interwoven into mainstream living and is embedded in our vocabulary and ultimately our way of living.
Do You Find Yourself?
- Obsessing over your diet
- Judging how many pounds you see on the scale
- Being hyper-critical of what you see in the mirror
- Working out even when you’re exhausted
- Avoiding certain foods even when your body craves them
- Feeling bad about eating certain foods or missing an exercise day
- Controlling what you eat to an obsessive degree
- Using diuretics to control your weight
The reality is that eating disorders are complex and intersected with demographics and numerous oppressions in our society. People with eating disorders experience severe disturbances in their eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions. People with eating disorders struggle with their relationship to their body. There are many different types of eating disorders:
- Anorexia Nervosa
- Bulimia Nervosa
- Binge Eating Disorder (BED)
- Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)
- Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)
- Pica
- Rumination Disorder
- Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED)
It’s important that we understand eating disorders more fully as sadly, there are many stereotypes and misconceptions about eating disorders. In doing so, we can help loved ones, colleagues and communities get the support they need. We especially need to help marginalized communities who are struggling with eating disorders.
Eating disorders can be deadly.
Let’s raise our understanding around eating disorders to address this as a community.
Understanding Eating Disorders
I’m going to share three t common eating disorders. And how to identify if you or a loved one is suffering from this condition.
Anorexia Nervosa
The most commonly known disorder is anorexia nervosa.
They avoid certain types of food and severely restrict their calorie intake.
They also have an extreme fear of gaining weight. They struggle with their relationship with their body.
Bulimia Nervosa
Individuals with this eating disorder will typically binge eat foods. During a binge, they feel they can’t control eating.
After their binge, they use laxatives, enemas, vomiting or excessive exercise to compensate.
Similar to anorexia, these individuals have an extreme fear of gaining weight.
Binge Eating Disorder
Binge eating is the most prevalent and common type of eating disorder. It’s also one of the most common chronic disorders among adolescents.
People with binge eating disorder do not restrict calories or use purging behaviors, such as vomiting or excessive exercise, to compensate for their binges.
People with binge eating disorder often consume excessive amounts of food and are consumed with guilt, shame and /or negative feelings after a binge.
If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, please share this article with them. Offer to listen and support them.
I am happy to connect them with the resources and support they need.
It’s important that we help each other given the amount of suffering eating disorders are causing.
The Rise in Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are on the rise. Due to westernization, social media, and the pandemic, we are seeing surges in eating disorders.
Some Concerning Statistics:
- Up to 70 million people suffer from eating disorders
- Severity and prevalence of eating disorders may be spiking even more due to the anxiety and stress unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic
- Eating disorders prevalence has “increased over the study period from 3.5% for the 2000–2006 period to 7.8% for the 2013–2018 period”
We know we have a problem. The best way we can address eating disorders is by collectively building awareness. Educating ourselves about these challenges.
Need Help?
Navigating the world of eating disorders is not easy. It’s complex and nuanced.
That’s why I’m here to help.
If your team, company, school, community or organization is struggling with eating disorders, I’m would like to help.
No matter what specific challenge you are facing, I provide customized training around eating disorders.
Let’s connect and see what we can build to get you and your team back on track.
Speak soon.
Why is Eating Disorder Training Being Left out of Medical Schools?
Eating disorders affect at least 9% of the population worldwide.1 That means 28.8 million Americans, will have an eating disorder in their lifetime.2 This poses as a significant financial burden as the economic cost of eating disorders is $64.7 billion every year.2
Of all mental illnesses, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate.
And yet, studies show that medical students receive less than two hours of training on eating disorders. They study for 4 to 6 years and spend less than two hours on an illness with a high mortality rate.
Individuals suffering from eating disorders have shared that doctors’ knowledge around eating disorders, or lack of it, can be the difference to continuing to suffer and recovery.
According to a study done in the UK, only 42% felt that their general practitioner (doctor) understood eating disorders. Only 34% believed their doctor knew how to help them with their illness.
To Recap….
- Eating disorders impact millions of people
- They have a high mortality rate
- General practitioners are the frontline workers about individuals’ health
- Medical schools provide medical students with less than two hours of education on eating disorders
What gives?
It seems to me that there is a clear gap. And it doesn’t appear to be that difficult to solve.
Closing the Gap: Training for Medical Practices
I am passionate about closing this gap. This is why I have put together training to support practitioners.
If you haven’t worked directly with eating disorders, addressing and treating them can be stressful. They can also become more complicated. Sometimes you know an eating disorder is present but your client/patient refuses treatment.
In my training, How to Treat Eating Disorders in Your Practice, you will learn how to navigate the complexity of eating disorders. You will discover tools and treatment ideas to help you support your patients.
Who this training is for:
- Therapists, psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists
- Mental health interns
- Post doc residents
- Physicians
- Nurses and dieticians
Over the years, I have discovered that we have many frontline workers. So I have built two additional training sessions to help us get ahead of this eating disorder epidemic.
Eating Disorders in the Classroom
Eating disorders are on the rise, and many teachers are not sure of how to approach it. There is all kinds of information about eating disorders.
Teachers wonder what to do with that information. It can feel overwhelming. Especially with everything else a teacher must watch for among their students.
In my Eating Disorders in the Classroom training, you will learn about eating disorders and treatment options. You will discover how to handle circumstances with students. You will learn what questions to ask your students.
Together, we explore your own fears, concerns and biases around eating disorders in a safe place. You will walk away confident and prepared to support your students.
Who this training is for:
- Elementary School to High School Teachers
- Teachers’ Assistants
- School Administrators
The classroom training helps address eating disorders from Kindergarten to High School. But this still leaves a big gap.
That’s why I built my Workplace Food and Body Liberation training. To tackle eating disorders with adults, through their companies. After all, we spend 40+ hours a week at work. It has a huge impact on our day-to-day lives.
Workplace Food and Body Liberation
We are at work for such a large proportion of our waking hours. Our work demands continue to increase. Yet the pressures of work demands make it difficult to eat away from our desks.
Many workplaces are adopting work programs that focus on food and physical activity. Many “healthy work programs “ take a restrictive approach to food. And a focus on weight loss with physical activity.
We want a work environment where we celebrate food, movement, and each other.
We are already pressured by work demands, we do not need to add the pressures of diet culture to our work.
In my Workplace Food and Body Liberation Training, you will learn about diet culture. How diet culture impacts your workplace. We will explore your own weight stigma biases in a safe space. And you will discover how to build a workplace culture that’s empowered to make changes for food and body liberation.
Who this training is for:
- Companies
- Nonprofits
- Small Business Owners
- Communities
- Organizations
Change begins when we can individually and collectively embrace nourishment, our bodies and each other.
We all deserve to experience food and body liberation.
We all deserve that freedom. It is vital.
Need Help?
I also provide customized training around specific topics or needs.
Let’s connect and see what we can build to get you and your team back on track.
Speak soon.
1Arcelus, Jon et al. “Mortality rates in patients with anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders. A meta-analysis of 36 studies.” Archives of general psychiatry 68,7 (2011): 724-31. https://doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.74
2Deloitte Access Economics. The Social and Economic Cost of Eating Disorders in the United States of America: A Report for the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders and the Academy for Eating Disorders. June 2020. Available at: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/striped/report-economic-costs-of-eating-disorders/.
The invisibility of marginalized folks who suffer from eating disorders
Eating disorders are often viewed as occurring in Caucasian, thin, affluent, cisgender adolescent girls. The way our current media portrays those suffering from eating disorders reinforces this myth.
How current treatment systems continue to be inaccessible for marginalized communities
I am a queer cisgender,
Eating disorders are often viewed as occurring in Caucasian, thin, affluent, cisgender adolescent girls. The way our current media portrays those suffering from eating disorders reinforces this myth. In 2017, Netflix released the movie "˜To the Bone " whose main character fits this exact stereotype from her appearance, narrative and even the way her family easily accessed treatment. It is also important to point out that the actress who portrayed the lead character with an eating disorder suffered from eating disorder years ago. She reported that she worked with a nutritionist to lose a drastic amount of weight in a "healthy " way so that she could have the emaciated body needed for this movie role. Newsflash: you can't lose a drastic amount of weight in a "healthy " way after suffering from an eating disorder. Would you ever ask a person who recovered from substance abuse to do a significant amount of substances and risk an overdose for a part in a movie or play?
Let's focus on the stereotype of an individual with an eating disorder. Here are some statistics from the Marginalized Voices project. The National Eating Disorders Association's Marginalized Voices campaign, supported by Reasons Eating Disorder Center, is confronting the prevailing myths about who struggles with eating disorders, underscoring that everyone's experience is equally as valid and deserving of care and recovery.
- Black teenagers are 50% more likely than white teenagers to exhibit bulimic behaviors, such as bingeing and purging.
- A 2014 study found that rates of disordered eating have increased across all demographic sectors, but at a faster rate in male, lower socioeconomic and older folks
- Transgender college students were significantly more likely than members of any other group of college students to report an eating disorder diagnosis in the past year- 2015 study.
- Teenage girls from low income families are 153% more likely to struggle with bulimia than girls from wealthy families.
- Only 20% of those with eating disorders fit the "emaciated body " stereotype.
The myth that eating disorders only occur in affluent Caucasian girls is damaging to the many people across all races, genders and sexual orientations in all age groups that suffer from eating disorders. This narrow viewpoint continues to reinforce an invisibility that is often felt by marginalized communities. The narrow viewpoint of who gets an eating disorder continues to limit our understanding of eating disorders and not appreciate the deep complexities and layers of eating disorders that need to be revealed for true healing to occur.
As a psychologist who specializes in eating disorders, I continue to be dismayed by how inaccessible treatment is for eating disorders. I recently participated in a retreat for women of color with disorder eating. It was held in Southern California and it was indeed an effort that involved a coming together of many people like myself to create space for women of color with disordered eating. The women described waiting for over a year for a retreat of this nature, these women also reported driving from 20 minutes to 3 hours to get to the retreat site. The question that came up for me is then what? What will these women do after the retreat. There are some incredible community efforts like the work of Gloria Lucas in Nalgona Positivity Pride, who runs an online disordered eating support group for people of color- Sage and Spoon. Yet we need more of these spaces.
Now, let's take a look at trans folks with eating disorders. In a large population study of college students, trans students reported significantly higher eating disorder diagnosis rates, including use of diet pills, vomiting, and laxatives use when compared to all other groups (Diemer, 2015). Yet trans folks struggle with accessing treatment and when they access treatment for their eating disorder, their interactions with treatment was alarming. In a study of 84 trans folks with eating disorders and treatment, not one reported a positive experience, most regretted treatment even after knowing how life threatening eating disorders are. (Duffy, 2016).
Like many mental health illnesses, eating disorders treatment programs, advocates and clinicians must work together to change the current treatment landscape. All individuals affected by eating disorders need to be afforded the means, opportunities and intersectional treatment options needed for recovery.
What can you do as a clinician who does not specialize in eating disorders but sees clients with eating disorders?
- Learn about eating disorders from a wide varied source of information available. My website has some great resources: https://marcellaedtraining.com/resources/
- Assess for eating disorders in all your intakes, continue to assess for eating disorders. Some clients come to see you for substance use or other self harm behaviors. Some come to see you for trauma and the various ways they are disconnected from the world. Assess for an eating disorder.
- Ask people to tell you their experience in their bodies. Ask them what is it like to navigate in the world with the body they are living in. Most body image and eating disorders screening focus on weight and size. It is important to expand our lens on why people may engage in an eating disorder.
- Attend local conferences. Eating Disorders Recovery and Support (EDRS) and International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals (IAEDP) host local educational events in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Apply for scholarships for your clients with eating disorders: https://marcellaedtraining.com/treatment-scholarships/
*This article was first published in Gaylesta's newsletter.- Summer 2018
Marcella M Raimondo,
Psychologist, Consultant
Pronouns: She/her
Check out my site - https://marcellaedtraining.com/
working with folks with eating problems, eating disorders and body image issues