The Problem behind Zara McDermott's 'Disordered Eating'

Best known for starring in the fourth series of Love Island, Zara McDermott brings us a new documentary following social media’s influence on eating disorders, Zara McDermott: Disordered Eating. Travelling across the country to meet young people at different stages of their acceptance, treatment and recovery, she unpacks just how triggering influencers’ social medias can be to viewers. However, I question if McDermott struggles to hit the right note as she continues to post identified triggers on her platform even now.

Social media has recently extended to include the phenomenon that is TikTok, and whilst for many it’s ability to connect helped many stay upbeat through the pandemic, it has a very sinister side. It is revealed in the documentary that nearly 60% of young people with an eating disorder said that TikTok reduced their self-esteem. Beneath the endless fitness videos and healthy recipe videos, the extensive accessibility of darker material, glorifying and encouraging disordered eating is terrifying, especially as most users on this app spend over an hour on TikTok, and are under the age of 25.

Whilst McDermott’s aim is admirable in shedding light on the dark side of social media, there is something uncomfortable about the many interviews she conducts. Zara herself continues to have an Instagram account dedicated to promoting a healthy lifestyle, with low calorie recipes and videos of herself exercising. Whilst this seems encouraging on the surface, we learn that all the young people she speaks to find this narrative triggering. With pages like Zara’s being direct causes of spirals into disordered eating, I am left questioning whether Zara was the right person to bring us this content, and how problematic it is giving these influencer’s more public attention.

One of the most difficult moments to watch is McDermott interviewing Tiwa, who attends a focus group support session at the Maudsley Hospital. As a result of her eating disorder, Tiwa felt so isolated, and her self- esteem plummeted. She felt so ashamed of her appearance and so signed up to an app with “coaches” essentially trolling her with comments, shaming her daily into losing weight. Zara later met Lauren, who she noted has an almost identical Instagram page to her own, promoting healthy living. However, for Lauren, her social media quickly became a façade, hiding her disorder and preventing her from accepting that her lifestyle was an illness. 

After both occasions of the girls sharing their insecurities with Zara, the documentary cut to montages of Zara on holiday wearing bikinis, to clips of her posing for Instagram photoshoots, perpetuating these very same triggers just heard, and leaving her seemingly oblivious to her own program. Whilst not a malicious move, it leaves me wondering how ready influencers are to start taking responsibility for their ‘influence’, and why Zara set out making this documentary if she was not going to change her triggering behaviour?

The documentary ends with Lauren, who had recently been admitted to a clinic to help her recover from anorexia. She tells Zara one of the biggest steps in her recovery is taking serious, conscious time away from social media, evidently working as she was visibly brighter, healthier and happier. In response to Zara’s question of the extent of social media’s role in disordered eating, this surely answers it simply and definitively.

Life is about balance, and whilst promoting a healthy lifestyle is not a crime, influencers and those in positions that people look up to, have a moral responsibility to show that there is more to life than calories and workouts.