Teens Often Bullied Online About Their Weight

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Teenagers are frequently bullied about their weight on social media, and the bullying increases with each hour they spend on these sites, a new study reveals.

Nearly one in five teens (17%) said they’d experienced weight-related bullying online, according to results published April 17 in the journal PLOS One.

“This experience can have adverse effects, including poor body image, disordered eating behaviors and anxiety and depression symptoms,” said the research team led by David Hammond. He’s a professor with the University of Waterloo School of Public Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada.

Further, each additional hour of social media use brought with it a 13% increase in weight-related bullying, researchers calculated.

Twitter, now known as X, was the most toxic site, with teens there 69% more likely to be bullied regarding their weight.

However, Twitter was also the least-used social media platform among teens, with only 22% saying they used it.

For the study, researchers analyzed survey data for more than 12,000 teens in Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. Overall, teens spent an average of 7.5 hours on recreational screen time every weekday.

Associations between screen time, social media use and weight-related bullying were strongest for teens in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/teens-often-bullied-online-about-their-weight-study