The thigh gap: Social media fuel dangerous weight-loss objective

Studies suggest that peer pressure from social media plays a significant role in eating disorders. A 2011 study at the University of Haifa found that adolescent girls who spent the most time using Facebook had a greater chance of developing a negative body image and an eating disorder.

“The intrusion and presence of social media in our lives really does make it very difficult,” said Nancy Albus, chief executive officer of Castlewood Treatment Center, a suburban St. Louis facility that focuses on eating disorders. “The important distinction about thigh gap is it gives you an actual visual to achieve, this visual comparison of how your body does or doesn’t stack up.”

Dr. Vonda Wright, a Pittsburgh-based orthopedic surgeon and fitness expert, said the spacing between a person’s legs is based mostly on genetics. And even extraordinarily thin people may not have a body type that can achieve a gap. You have to be both skinny and wide-hipped, she said.

Besides, Wright said, it isn’t a goal worth chasing. Most fit people won’t have a thigh gap because their thighs are muscular enough that they touch, she said.

“Skinny does not mean fit or muscular,” said Wright, who works with Division I athletes. “I cannot think of one athlete I deal with” who has a thigh gap.

Experts say it is impossible to know if the pursuit of a thigh gap has caused any deaths, nor is it known how many eating disorders are blamed on the phenomenon. But Mysko said experts believe that “exposure to online images of extreme beauty standards and the drive to compare does increase the risk of developing eating disorders.”

Sara, a 22-year-old Castlewood client, said thigh-gap sites were a contributing factor in her struggle. She spoke on the condition that she be identified only by her first name to avoid the stigma associated with eating disorders.

Always a high achiever, Sara was captain of her high school swim team in Minnesota and a straight-A student. In college, she graduated near the top of her class, even while hiding her secret.

It was in high school that Sara developed anorexia. By college, she was purging and excessively exercising. She was a frequent visitor to thigh-gap sites.

“It helped to normalize what I was doing to myself,” Sara said. “I never knew before that I wanted a thigh gap. It felt like it was some type of accomplishment that people would want to achieve.”

The sites offered photos of slender-legged models, testimonials on how to achieve the gap and tips such as chewing food but spitting it out before swallowing.

Grotesquely, some sites showed pictures of Holocaust victims “for motivational purposes” or martyred those who died from eating disorders. It seemed to make her own struggle OK, Sara said.

“I would say, ‘Well, I’m not that bad.'”