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Zara McDermott has said she has a ‘responsibility’ as she promised to change her content on social media after triggering followers with eating disorders.
The TV personality went on a ‘health and fitness journey’ after soaring to fame on Love Island and would regularly update her fans with her transformation pics.
But in BBC documentary Disordered Eating, Zara sat down with some of her followers who told her they found her feeds ‘triggering’, which has made her rethink how she approaches Instagram.
The influencer appeared on Friday’s BBC Breakfast to discuss the impact of social media on body image with hosts Charlie Stayt and Tina Daheley, who is standing in for Naga Munchetty.
Zara reflected: ‘I was sadly trolled quite badly when I came out of the show [Love Island] because of my weight you know I wasn’t the smallest girl there but I was a perfectly healthy weight but sadly the trolls decided to tell me I was too big.
‘I then went on my own health and fitness journey and lost some weight as a result of that. I wasn’t suffering from an eating disorder myself [but] I knew there was a massive demand for weight loss content.’
Zara opened up about her social media (Picture: BBC)
She continued: ‘So I was just posting and posting not actually realising the detrimental impact it was having on so many of my followers. I was just meeting the demands for that content.’
‘We know that social media doesn’t cause eating disorders but it can play a large factor in the development so essentially posts of mine and many other influencers over the years could have triggered someone’s eating disorder at some point.
Zara fronted a doc about disordered eating (Picture: BBC)
Asked how she was going to ‘do things differently’ Zara responded: ‘Essentially for me I’ve learnt not to allow someone to emulate your exact lifestyle, exactly what you’re eating in a day, what exercise you’re doing in the gym do because you may not believe it but people do what emulate exactly your lifestyle.
‘So not posting things like what I eat in a day, not strict workout regimes that people could copy.
Zara will be posting different content to her social media (Picture: Instagram)
‘I also have a responsibility it’s a bit of a tightrope because I want to share my life but I have to be mindful that there’s millions of people watching what I do and I don’t want to trigger someone who’s really vulnerable so it’s about finding that perfect balance.’
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Zara also recently spoke to Metro.co.uk about the criticism she faced after her followers branded her ‘anorexic’ and said her content ‘triggered’ their eating disorders.
She explained: ‘Now I’m nearly 26 I look back on those few years and was like I should have looked at how my content would impact somebody else, but at the time I was too naive and I didn’t want to hear that at that point.’
BEAT
If you suspect you, a family member or friend has an eating disorder, contact Beat on 0808 801 0677 or at [email protected], for information and advice on the best way to get appropriate treatment
BBC Breakfast airs weekdays from 6am on BBC One.
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Zara said she feels a ‘responsibility.’
