YouTube algorithms push eating disorder content to teen girls, study finds
By Elizabeth Germino December 10, 2024 / 6:00 AM EST / CBS News Anna Mockel was 14 and suddenly obsessed with losing weight. It was spring 2020, and she had just graduated eighth grade remotely. Housebound and nervous about the transition to high school that coming fall, she sacrificed innumerable hours that COVID lockdown summer shuffling between social media apps. Anna spent a lot of time on YouTube “not searching for anything in particular,” just watching what popped up in her feed. She remembers the spiraling thoughts started when she’d watch videos featuring girls who were a bit older and invariably skinny. The more Anna watched, the more these videos would clog her feed, and the more determined she was to look like the girls in the videos. As she clicked and tapped, YouTube’s “Up Next” panel of recommended videos started morphing from content featuring skinny girls to “how-tos” on losing weight. Diet and exercise videos began to dominate Anna’s account. As she kept watching, she says, the content intensified, until her feed was flooded with videos glorifying skeletal-looking bodies and hacks for sustaining a