(San Francisco, CA) – A new study says kids who have their own smartphones at age 12 are more likely to develop eating disorder symptoms. The research was published Friday in the medical journal JAMA Network Open and comes from a survey of nearly nine-thousand kids across the U.S. The study’s lead author from the University of California, San Francisco said, “a smartphone can put a world of appearance-focused content in a young person’s pocket,” exposing them to content that may cause unhealthy eating behaviors. The research found that 70-percent of 12-year-olds have their own phone and 24-percent of those reported at least one eating disorder symptom by age 14.
The study said kids who had smartphones at 12 were twice as likely to link self-worth to their weight and one and a half times more likely to have tried controlling their weight.
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