Anorexia is no longer a disease that appears on the podiums and parades. Today on Instagram, Tiktok or Pinterest, it has become an attitude, even a claim. And one more threat to adolescent girls who drink from these images.
An aesthetic of the void, fed this time by the algorithm
The photos are licked, the poses studied, the flattering filters … hashtags like #Thinspo or #Whatieatinaday, however regularly banished, re -emerge from Emojis or voluntary faults. Result: glorification of vacuum, bone, disappearance …
“Anorexia has been digitized. It is stealthy but viral”, Alert Christian Richomme, who accompanies suffering teenage girls every week in his office.
According to him, the networks have not created evil, but they amplify it, distribute it, make it desirable.
A body in search of validation
Where the bathroom mirror served as a stallion, it is today that of Instagram that shapes self -image. From 12 years old, some young girls learn to pose, to film themselves, to “check” their silhouette from all angles. “They no longer live in their bodies, they diffuse it”observes the therapist.
This staging creates a switch: it is no longer a question of being thin for yourself, but of being validated by the others. “”A patient said to me one day: I don’t want to be healthy, I want to be fine in the photo. This ice phrase. And she says everything “reports Christian Richomme.
An attempt to control against anxiety
Far from a simple eating disorder, anorexia also becomes a desperate attempt to master something on the networks, in a world that we no longer understand. “It is not that they want to disappear, it is that they no longer know how to be”underlines the psychopractor.
Deprivation then becomes a language: an unconscious way of saying no. No to growth, chaos, body sexualization, family conflicts or performance pressure. Behind the obsession with mastery, hides an immense fear of not being loved as we are.
Take care differently: relearn to feel
This is why, for Christian Richomme, accompaniment cannot be limited to a weight recovery. It becomes more complex. “”Healing anorexia is not just to go and eat. It is to give the body its living, expressive function. Relearn to feel, not just to look at each other ” he says.
A psychological approach, even a psychoanalysis, are then advised. Because behind the restriction hides existential suffering: “It is not the food that these teenage girls reject. It is confusion, emotion, the feeling of not being accepted.”
Change the look, not the bodies
Finally, Christian Richomme invites to a collective reflection: “The problem does not only come from networks. He also comes from our gaze. As long as the thinness is applauded as proof of will, as long as body performance takes precedence over listening, we will feed the evil “.
In France, nearly 600,000 young people suffer from food problems, according to HAS. Anorexia is the second cause of psychiatric mortality in 15-24 year olds. And since 2020, hospitalizations linked to this disorder have jumped 30 % among adolescents (AP-HP). In this context, the voice of therapists like Christian Richomme is essential: to rehumanize care, and rehabilitate living, imperfect – and finally loved bodies for what they are.