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Social media trending hashtags such as skinny girl dinner and thinspiration are promoting restrictive eating and a lifestyle centered on staying thin to millions of people around the world. This hunger for thinness is also finding its way into the misuse of GLP-1 drugs (glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists), a medical breakthrough that has transformed the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity but is often being misused by people living with eating disorders.

These behaviors become even more concerning when viewed against a recent epidemiological study in JAMA Psychiatry, which estimated that 18.1 million people worldwide were living with anorexia or bulimia in 2023.

People with anorexia nervosa often have such an overwhelming fear of gaining weight that they drastically cut back on food, sometimes starving themselves to the point of dangerous weight loss. Bulimia nervosa takes a different course, trapping people in a cycle of binge eating and purging, using methods such as self-induced vomiting or laxatives in an attempt to prevent weight gain.

As part of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2023 Study, researchers analyzed global health data from 1990 to 2023 to track how many people have anorexia or bulimia, who is most affected by age and sex, how much overall health loss or disability burden these conditions cause, and how these numbers are projected to grow through the year 2050.

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