Fighting your anorexia on TikTok, between the benefits and risks

In the video, Issour Talebois picks up a piece of paper with the name of the dish written on it, buys it and tastes it, giving her impressions: “I forgot how good it was.” On TikTok, Internet users use the #FearFoodChallenge hashtag to show certain stages of their recovery process from an eating disorder (TCA), or more specifically anorexia nervosa. They (mostly women) list foods that scare them, challenge themselves to eat one, pick a random one, then taste it themselves.

“When we have anorexia nervosa, food becomes our enemy, we fear food,” Explains the 24-year-old student who started with illustration videos on TikTok, and in the spring of 2023 began posting recipes and documenting her progress while dealing with a disease that results in loss of appetite and a person’s own thinness. Inability to see. . “It is an irrational fear. Anyone who doesn’t have it thinks it’s nonsense. But fear cannot be explained. It is compared, he explains, to the fear of flying or the fear of the dark.

with the objective of “Compromise with food”, She made a list of the foods she no longer ate, helped by her younger sister, and filled out “Fear Food Drawer” With these papers. She took one every day, because in her opinion, opportunity is the best way to force food intake: “When you’re afraid of something, you’re never ready to face it.”

It was only when her sister went on vacation that Isaur realized that it was difficult to continue this challenge alone. “So I started sharing it on TikTok. (…) It was a way to get support from people. (…) I did it for myself, to feel less alone.”

His most viewed Fear Food Challenge video has surpassed 474,000 views. In comments and private messages, she says she has “Surprised to get so much support”: “It felt good to share.” After a few months, she felt she had made enough progress with her food phobia that she no longer needed the challenge.

@isypeasyyy It’s cookie day 🍪 Big challenge, but my favorite cookies deserve heaven #recovery #ed #fypシedrec0very #cookielover #fearfoodchallenge #fearfoodjar #miecalinenantes #miecaline #miecaline🍪 #cookis Only – Somewhere Acooki

Apology videos, a drop in the ocean amid praise for thinness

The Fear Food Challenge is one of the most frequently seen content on TikTok under the term “ED Recovery” (“ED”). “Eating Disorders”SO “ED Recovery” for “waiver of TCA”). When you search for these words in English on the application, it does not show a video but directs to resources to help, so Internet users use hashtags that replace a letter with a symbol to bypass the filter.

If in her videos, Issor Talebois mainly shares the joy of synchronizing herself with food, other TikTokers show their reaction of fear in the face of the imposed dish and the difficulty of eating it, which may leave some Internet users unfathomable, as seen in this is comments

Talking about TCA on TikTok is still in the minority compared to weight loss commands. The social network has often been criticized for its algorithm that can frequently recommend videos promoting diets. In late 2022, the British NGO Center for Countering Digital Hate pointed out that the platform’s algorithm could give rise to a vicious circle of content encouraging weight loss, including among younger users. More recently, the American Association National Alliance for Eating Disorders condemned the hashtag #legginglegs (which promotes skinny legs), which has since been excluded by the app.

Psychiatrist Venina Micheli-Rechtman warns against glorifying thinness on social media. An expert in TCA, she is the author of the book New Deadly Beauties, We look online at the role of images in the prevalence of disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. If she confirms that a patient’s re-introduction of forbidden foods is part of a waiver from TCA, she believes showing it on TikTok “Very repulsive”: “On the one hand because of the fact that something is imposed on oneself and on the other hand it is harmful to show food that is visible to the eyes of others. (…) It is very painful to be in that image.

TikTok has a toxic relationship with food

Psychiatrists emphasize that a person who has T.C.A “Healing requires protection”. This is why psychiatric services specializing in these illnesses usually establish a period of isolation. She remembers that “Mutual aid exists outside social networks”, And instead of turning to the online community, it is necessary to turn to the experts.

Among the content revolving around food that we often see on TikTok, she points out “Videos of people overeating Refers to mookbangs (which involve filming yourself eating enormous amounts of food you’ve prepared, editor’s note). “It is dangerous because it shows that it is trivial, that it is a challenge, when it is a pathological attitude,” she emphasizes. In France, according to the French Anorexia Bulimia Federation, about one million people suffer from an eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa affects about 1% of women and 0.3% of men.

@beckylewin Today is hard🥺 but we keep fighting✨ #edrec0very #foryou #fearfoodchallenge #fyp #edrecovry #anarecoveryy #fearfood #prorecovery ♬ Original Sound – Music Quotes

For her part, Isaure Taillebois reports that she was a viewer of food videos on TikTok before becoming their creator. While the Fear Food Challenge format inspires her to challenge herself, she feels other content can be harmful: “Videos where people show what they eat in a day (“What I eat in a day”) really encourage people to compare themselves, when we don’t know how much truth is behind it. We compare ourselves to something like that. That’s not necessarily true. When I was very sick, it hurt me a lot.”

It also warns that there are thin and strict diets “glamorized” Online: “This is a disease where we are in deep mental distress, which forces us to do a lot of harm to ourselves, and social networks only show the beautiful part of the iceberg. We don’t talk about how much this disease kills.”

Even in Fear Food Challenges, videos that appear positive at first glance can hide a toxic relationship with food. Isaure Taillebois reminds us that challenging ourselves to face the foods we fear is only of interest if we do not deprive ourselves of counterbalance. “Anomaly”: “My nutritionist asked me: “When you face food, do you eat normally the rest of the day?” This is the case for me, but there are people who share the fear of food challenges and we don’t know. Nor will they eat anything for the rest of the day.

Before feeling comfortable enough to post videos, Isaure Taillebois recalls that “It was (he) cutting himself off from (his) phone that (he) started to get better.” A good starting point is to find a good relationship with food in addition to consulting a doctor “Make informed choices about what you see on social networks”, Venina Micheli-Rechtman recommends: Watch genuinely informative videos instead of getting bogged down by anxiety-provoking content.