Brianna Ghey’s mother warns tech bosses more children will die without action

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Admin

Exclusive: Esther Ghey says she believes social media use left her daughter vulnerable, while killers were able to access violent content online

‘I want to make things better’: Esther Ghey on her hopes for online reform

The mother of Brianna Ghey has called for her murder to be a “tipping point” in how society views “the mess” of the internet, warning that a generation of anxious young people will grow up lacking resilience.

Esther Ghey said technology companies had a “moral responsibility” to restrict access to harmful online content. She supports a total ban on social media access for under-16s – a move currently under debate in certain legislatures, including Florida in the US.

I had anorexia in the 1970s – and it came back in lockdown | Ask Philippa

Posted on February 27, 2022 by Admin

The loneliness that triggered this was not your fault, says Philippa Perry. Have self compassion and get professional help

The question In the 1970s, I was anorexic and was in hospital for months as a teenager after being admitted as a medical emergency weighing just 5st. In those days, treatment was harsh, drug-based and punitive in tone.

I recovered to live a fulfilling life. I was married for 30 years, raised two children, worked as a teacher and ended my career as head of a large comprehensive school.

Lena Zavaroni: fame, anorexia and the tragedy of a 1970s child star

Posted on February 26, 2022 by Admin

Zavaroni was in the charts at 11 and died after years of illness aged 35. Her father talks about their family life as a new stage show about her is about to open

There are a few recordings of television interviews with Lena Zavaroni around online. One with Russell Harty where he comments that her eating disorder must save on restaurant bills and another when Terry Wogan tells her to eat up so she can get back to “your chunky self”.

The little girl with the big voice was 10 when she appeared on Opportunity Knocks – television’s predecessor to Britain’s Got Talent and Pop Idol – singing Ma! He’s Making Eyes at Me, 11 when it was a hit and 13 when she was diagnosed with anorexia, a barely known illness then called the “slimmer’s disease”. Before she died in 1999 the girl from Rothesay on the Scottish island of Bute had hosted her own TV shows, performed at the White House and shared a stage with Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball. She remains the youngest artist ever to have a record in the Top 10 UK albums chart. Lena was huge.

David Baddiel and his daughter on his social media addiction: ‘it can reward and punish you’

Posted on December 11, 2021 by Admin

Despite the abuse and anger, the comedian spent hours a day online. But then his daughter Dolly became dangerously drawn in. Was it time for a rethink?

Over the past 30 years, I have read and heard David Baddiel’s thoughts on many subjects, including sex, masturbation, religion, antisemitism, football fandom, football hooliganism, his mother’s sex life and his father’s dementia. “I am quite unfiltered,” he agrees, “mainly because I am almost psychotically comfortable in my own skin.” But today I have found the one subject that makes him squirm.

How much time does he spend on social media a day? “Oh, um, too much,” he says, his usual candour suddenly gone. What’s his daily screen time according to his phone? “It says four hours, which is a bit frightening.”

‘She opens the app and gets bombarded’: parents on Instagram, teens and eating disorders

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Admin

Mothers describe their daughters’ dangerous experiences after whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, Michelle noticed her teenage daughters were spending substantially more time on Instagram.

The girls were feeling isolated and bored during lockdown, the Arizona mom, who has asked to only be identified by her first name to maintain her children’s privacy, recalled. She hoped social media could be a way for them to remain connected with their friends and community.

Instagram ‘pushes weight-loss messages to teenagers’

Posted on July 19, 2021 by Admin

Researchers find minimal interactions by teen users can trigger a deluge of thin-body and dieting images

Instagram’s algorithms are pushing teenage girls who even briefly engage with fitness-related images towards a flood of weight-loss content, according to new research which aimed to recreate the experience of being a child on social networks.

Researchers adopting “mystery shopper” techniques set up a series of Instagram profiles mirroring real children and followed the same accounts as the volunteer teenagers. They then began liking a handful of posts to see how quickly the network’s algorithm pushed potentially damaging material into the site’s “explore” tab, which highlights material that the social network thinks a user might like.

Hope Virgo: the woman who survived anorexia – and began Dump the Scales

Posted on July 7, 2021 by Admin

Hospitalised with an eating disorder as a teenager, she recovered to become a campaigner. Her mission? To show that eating disorders aren’t always visible

Hope Virgo’s description of her descent into anorexia is so harrowing and filled with danger that meeting her in real life – in the south London flat she shares with her fiance – is like meeting the personification of triumph or optimism. “In the media, you see the same stories, the same distressed, emaciated person; you hear of people dying,” Virgo says. “We need to hear those stories, but at the same time, I really believe that a full recovery is possible. I think we lose sight of that glimmer of hope.”

In her book Stand Tall Little Girl, she gives the figures to back this up: 40% of people who have had an eating disorder never think about it again; 15% are unable to fight it off and are stuck in it; and 45% of people find a way to live with it, using coping mechanisms. Virgo’s pioneering work has an overarching purpose: to say, in her words and through her actions, that recovery is possible. It’s a rescue mission launched from regular life into a world of crisis – in which no one is seen as irrecoverable.

I thought my eating disorder was my protector, but I have been anorexia’s prey | Melis Layik

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Admin

With university online and no job to go to thanks to Covid, it has become easier to spend hours in front of the mirror berating my appearance

Name: Melis Layik

Age: 21

I increased my dosage of antidepressants today. With the loosening of Victoria’s Covid restrictions and the surge of New Year’s weight loss marketing, my eating disorder has once again overwhelmed me with feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing.