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Associations Between Social Media Use and Loneliness, Body Image and Disordered Eating: A Qualitative Study of British Young Adults

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Food, Nutrition and the Media

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Abstract

This chapter explores the convoluted relation between loneliness, body image issues and disordered eating in young people and its association with excessive social media use. Combining findings from a review of the main existing theoretical frameworks with a qualitative analysis of data collected between 2017 and 2019 from 241 participants the chapter argues for an expansion of Rodgers’ (Adolescent Research Review 1 (2): 131, 2016) integrated theoretical model to include loneliness as a predictor for social media use and an aggravating factor for those at risk of developing an eating disorder. This is the first cross-sectional study to explore the effects of SNS use on loneliness and disordered eating behaviours (emotional eating, bulimic symptoms and body dissatisfaction) in British young adults (18–24 years of age).

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Change history

  • 18 August 2021

    “The original version of this chapter was revised owning to a mistake in the order of authors in Chapter 22 the original chapter was inadvertently published with incorrect author names. The names have been corrected as below:

Notes

  1. 1.

    Digital detox is used to refer to a period of time when an individual decides to refrain from using social media websites by deleting all or some social media accounts.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the University of Wolverhampton through the Early Researcher Award Scheme 2017–2018.

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  1. University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK

    Bianca Fox

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Correspondence to Bianca Fox .

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  1. University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Valentina Marinescu

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Fox, B. (2020). Associations Between Social Media Use and Loneliness, Body Image and Disordered Eating: A Qualitative Study of British Young Adults. In: Marinescu, V. (eds) Food, Nutrition and the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46500-1_21

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