Study reveals how selfies can make you vulnerable to eating disorders

Love to take a selfie Beware it can make you vulnerable to eating disorders warned a study Popular on social media selfies are portraits taken by the photos subject who positions the camera away from their body but pointed back at themselvesThe study published in the openaccess journal PLOS ONE showed that people tended to rate womens bodies as slimmer when viewed in selfie photographs than in photographs taken from other anglesHowever there was evidence that participants with a higher level of certain disordered eating symptoms tended to rate bodies in selfies more favourablyOn the basis of this finding and prior findings from other studies the researchers suggest that viewing selfies could be more damaging than other types of photos to people who are vulnerable to developing eating disordersMany of us see selfies every day as we browse the growing number of social media platforms We know that filters can change the way that bodies appear said the team led by Ruth Knight from St John University and Catherine Preston from University of York in the UKThis research suggests that the angle from which the photo is taken can change our judgments about body size so that when consuming images on the internet even simple unfiltered selfies what we see is not necessarily an accurate representation of real life they addedPrior research has suggested that viewing selfies might affect viewers judgments of the photo subjects attractiveness and could in some cases lead to comparisons that affect viewers satisfaction with their own appearanceBut such research is limited and has focused more on perception of faces in photos than bodies To shed new light the team evaluated the judgments of female participants in response to photos from different angles of 10 female volunteer models dressed in exercise clothingWith faces excluded each volunteers body was photographed at several angles from a traditional external perspective a selfie taken an arms length away a selfie taken using a selfie stick or from the volunteers own perspective with the camera looking down from the chinParticipants also completed a questionnaire to measure the degree to which they engaged in thoughts and behaviours related to disordered eatingAnalysing results from four different experiments the researchers found that participants tended to judge bodies in the selfie images as slimmer than bodies in the externalperspective images however there were no significant differences in attractiveness ratingsChindown images were judged to be less slim than selfies and the least attractive of all the perspectives analysedThese findings highlight potential links between social media use and body satisfactionHowever the researchers noted several limitations of the study such as a small number of participants and a lack of precise matching of photo angles between volunteer models which could have influenced judgmentsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever