Health Apps and Diet Fads: How Diet Culture's Digital Environment Facilitates Eating Disorders

The rates of eating disorders are rising across the world. According to Beat, eating disorders now affect around 1.25 million people of the UK population (Beat, 2022) and 7.8% of the global population (SingleCare, 2022). In correlation with the rise in cases of eating disorders, the number of downloads of health applications, including fitness, nutrition and diet apps, are also rising with each year, with a current estimation of global downloads to be in excess of 656 million (Statistica, 2020). Building upon existing research into the adverse effects of health applications on their users, this dissertation is an analysis of this correlation, seeking to discover if health applications instigate or, at least, partially facilitate, the symptomatology of eating disorders. This dissertation examines the cultural landscape that has enabled the success of health applications, including the sociopolitical, internalised beliefs of diet culture. This is explored within the context of the politics that surround diet culture, including anti-obesity, the ‘thin ideal’ and misogyny, analysing how these concepts contribute to the destructive nature of eating disorders. This dissertation details the semantics and usage of successful health applications and explores their impact through primary and secondary research. Based on the surrounding research of the correlation between eating disorders and the usage of health applications, interviews were conducted to collect personal and professional opinions of their potential danger. Interviews were conducted with a previous patient of an eating disorder hospital ward and a former CAMHS Mental Health Practitioner. In addition, to accurately explore the overall impact of health applications on the wider public, an anonymous survey asking for personal opinions and experiences of their usage of health applications was sent to and completed by thirty-three people. The results indicate that, whilst experiences with health applications vary, overall, the apps promote a hyper-awareness of calorific content, personal weight, food consumption and exercise. These testimonies contribute to the consensus that health applications do facilitate the behavioural and medical symptoms of eating disorders. Due to the results of this research, this dissertation recommends further academic, personal and corporate understanding of the adverse effects that are caused by the usage of health applications, aiming to instigate greater care for those with and without eating disorders. Further research is needed to determine how to create a closer-monitored and more sensitive digital environment that provides safer usage for those suffering or in the process of recovering from eating disorders