A teenage girl watches a video of a slim young woman in workout clothes showing everything she ate that day. A coffee. A few berries. A small salad. Then the app plays another one just like it and another. By the time she puts her phone down, she’s decided to skip dinner. Did she decide this on her own, or did the string of videos she just saw influence her?
Moments like that happen millions of times a day. A major new study tells us that the eating disorders tied to those moments are growing all over the world.
What the New Study Found
In late October 2026, the journal JAMA Psychiatry published the largest look yet at anorexia and bulimia worldwide. Researchers with the Global Burden of Disease project studied 204 countries and territories from 1990 through 2023. Here’s what they found:
• About 18.1 million people were living with anorexia or bulimia in 2023.
• The number of cases rose 71% since 1990. Even after accounting for population growth and age, the rate still rose by about 21%.
• About 7 in 10 people with these disorders were women and girls. But that still left 5.5 million men and boys.
• More than 4 in 10 cases were young people between the ages of 10 and 24.
• Bulimia was far more common than anorexia, with 14.2 million cases compared with 3.9 million. Anorexia was most common in the late teens, while bulimia was most common in people in their early 30s.
• Australia had the highest rate of any country. Growth was fastest in East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
• By 2050, the researchers expect 21.8 million people to be living with one of these disorders.
To be fair, the authors are careful about what their numbers can and can’t tell us. Some of the rise may come from better diagnosis, changes in how the disorders are defined, and the way the estimates were made.
The researchers say they can’t sort out how much each of these matters. Information from poorer countries is also thin. And the study left out binge eating disorder and several other eating disorders, so the true number of people struggling with food is almost surely higher.
My doctoral dissertation investigated binge eating in women over the age of 30. In my responses, one binge eater was 75. We can’t assume, therefore, that these disorders are confined to any age range.
Experts outside the study offered their own take. Fernando Fernández Aranda, who heads an eating disorder unit in Barcelona, said a quarter of the patients his team now sees are over age 45, so this isn’t only a young person’s problem. Another Spanish researcher, Mario Gutiérrez-Bedmar, said the steady rise, especially in bulimia, means we need to look hard at the role of social media.
These aren’t small problems. Anorexia has one of the highest death rates of any mental illness. When I read about this, I am, of course, reminded of the incredibly talented musician/singer Karen Carpenter, who had a severe eating disorder and died as a result.
Bulimia is often hidden, since most people with it are at an average weight. In fact, eating disorders can happen to people of any size, age, race, or sex.
Where Social Media and Wellness Influencers Fit In
So what about that teenager and her phone? A review of 50 studies from 17 countries found that social media use is linked to body worries and eating problems in people ages 10 to 24. It seems to work in three ways:
- People compare themselves to others.
- They come to believe they have to be thin or fit.
- They start to see their own bodies as something to be judged. The risk was higher on photo-heavy apps, with trends like “thinspiration” and “fitspiration,” and for girls and young people who already felt bad about their bodies.
A second review of 21 studies found the same kind of links between social media use and eating problems, body dissatisfaction, anxiety, and depression in teens. It also pointed out that almost no research had looked at influencers in particular. This begs the question of why researchers aren’t looking into it, since we know influencers run multimillion-dollar businesses and millions follow their advice.
The gap is starting to close, and the news isn’t good. When Australian researchers studied 250 nutrition posts on TikTok, health and wellness influencers made up about a third of the people posting. Fitness creators made up almost another fifth. Nearly half of the weight loss posts were mostly or completely wrong when checked against the science. Registered dietitians posted the most accurate content.
And here’s the troubling part: a post’s accuracy had nothing to do with how many likes or shares it got. This isn’t new. Back in 2020, researchers in Scotland reviewed nine popular weight-loss bloggers, each with tens of thousands of followers. Only one met their standards for honesty, fairness, and evidence.
What about those “What I Eat in a Day” videos? In a 2025 study, videos that showed the influencer’s body made young women who already worried about their bodies feel worse about themselves and less willing to eat.
Still, the picture isn’t all bad, and it’s important to say so. Researchers still can’t prove that social media causes eating disorders. People who are already struggling may look for this kind of content, and then the apps feed them more of it.
Young people who understood how social media works and who felt good about their bodies were protected. And social media can help. One review found that more than a third of studies looked at it as a tool for good, such as online groups that support people in recovery. Not every wellness voice online is a problem, either. The most accurate posts came from trained dietitians.
Helpful Hints for You and the People You Love
Here are some simple steps that can make a real difference.
• Know the warning signs. Watch for eating in secret, guilt or shame after eating, constant dieting, trips to the bathroom right after meals, hidden food wrappers, exercising even when sick or hurt, and pulling away from friends. Remember that a person can look perfectly healthy and still be very sick.
• Check who is giving the advice. Before you follow food advice online, ask whether the person is a registered dietitian or a physician. Be wary of words like “detox,” “cleanse,” and “reset.” I have often been shocked by some of the statements I see influencers make about health, nutrition, and body physiology.
• Clean up your feed. Unfollow or mute accounts that leave you feeling worse about your body. The apps show you more of whatever you watch, so what you skip matters, too. The algorithm tracks you, and each time you visit a site or watch an influencer, it decides what to show you next. Don’t go there and see how the choices you are getting from social media change in response.
• Talk with your kids. Ask them which accounts they follow and how those videos make them feel. Don’t comment on anyone’s weight or body, including your own.
• Don’t forget men and older adults. Eating disorders often go unnoticed in boys, men, and people over 45 because no one expects to see them there.
• Speak up with care. If you’re worried about someone, talk in private and focus on your concern for them, not on food or weight. Say “I’ve noticed you seem stressed at meals,” not “You’re too thin.”
• Get help early. Eating disorders can be treated, and the sooner treatment starts, the better. A good first step is a primary care physician. The National Alliance for Eating Disorders has a free helpline run by licensed therapists at 866–662–1235, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern time. If someone is in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988.
That teenager with her phone doesn’t have to end up among the 18 million. A parent who asks a question, a friend who speaks up, or a single unfollow can change where she goes next. The numbers are rising, but so is what we know about how to help.
Dr. Farrell’s books are on her Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/drpatriciafarrell. They are also on Google Play Books. Search for “Patricia A. Farrell, PhD.”
