Shaping Self-Image
Disinformation: Knowledge Repository
Misinformation and Shaping Self-Image with Children and Their Parents
Body image concerns and body dissatisfaction could influence children and young people on efforts to reduce weight in childhood, linking with expressions of increased depressive symptoms and other negative health impacts. Research from psychology, sociology, and gender studies has suggested that boys and girls become dissatisfied with their bodies before adolescence.
Mis- and Dis-information containing highly idealised images that portray body ideas and influence is found to be disseminated from four major sources: (1) peers; (2) influencers, or celebrities; (3) eating disorders and diet culture communities of interest; and (4) cosmetic surgery or intervention advertisements. These could all elevate body dissatisfaction and lead to self-esteem issues. Parents have voiced urgent need to find healthier ways to raise their Generation Z (Gen-Z) children and young people, leveraging between under- and over-supervision, as documented on and reflected through UK support service ‘Internet Matters’.
In Part Four of the book ‘The Anxious Generation’, Jonathan Haidt proposes several collective actions aimed at promoting healthier childhood, such as advocating for smartphone-free schools and advocating giving children real-world freedom. Haidt’s suggestions for promoting healthier childhood experiences are strategic and promising within the American cultural context but may be only partly applicable in other countries such as the UK. For instance, smartphones are set to be prohibited in schools across England as a part of the government’s initiative in Spring 2024 to minimise disruption and improve behaviours in classrooms. However, the concurrent rapid growth of UK social movement Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC) and Smartphone Free Schools (SFS) demonstrates how urgent and relevant the concerns of parents and carers are, related to online media consumption and use by children and young people, and the potential health and wellbeing implications.
We underscore the importance of considering sociocultural and contextual factors when designing tools, implementing strategies, and taking actions to collaborate with UK-based parents, carers, and educators to prevent children from being further harmed by online mis- and dis/information, instead empowering them with agency and capabilities to configure such information and harms. For this series of study, the Newcastle research team collaborated with Coram Life Education and focused on concerns relating to mis-/dis-information and body image with the intention to contribute to a wider evidence base addressing online safety for children and young people.
