Taylor Swift’s Openness About Eating Disorder And Body Image Helps Fans, Study Shows………..see more

Some fans were influenced to positively change their behaviors around eating and body image because of Swift’s transparency about her own experiences, new research suggests.
Taylor Swift opened up about experiences with an eating disorder in her 2020 film, Miss Americana.
Some of Swift’s fans view her as a role model for people with eating disorders or body image issues based on the survey.
Pop star Taylor Swift’s grip on our cultural imagination isn’t just getting some people to copy her penchant for friendship bracelets and bedazzled Travis Kelce jerseys. A new study suggests that her openness about her struggles with body image, disordered eating and body objectification has helped some fans improve their own attitudes and behaviors around food and body images.
For the study, researchers examined more than 8,300 comments in the top 200 TikTok and Reddit posts about Taylor Swift, eating disorders and body image to assess how her messages have impacted her fans.

“Our findings suggest that fans who felt highly connected to Swift were influenced to positively change their behaviors or attitudes around eating or their body image because of Swift’s disclosures and messages in her music,” said study coauthor Lizzy Pope, PHD, RD an associate professor of nutrition and food sciences and director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics at the University of Vermont in Burlington, in a statement.[2]
This matters because roughly 9 percent of Americans, or 28.8 million people, will experience an eating disorder at some point in their lives. About 8.6 percent of women and 4.07 percent of men experience one. Up to 84 percent of women experience dissatisfaction with their body, which is a risk factor for an eating disorder.[3]
Several of Swift’s songs touch on disordered eating, including “You’re On Your Own Kid” where she empathizes with her younger self: “I hosted parties and starved my body, like I’d be saved by the perfect kiss.”
Beyond what she has sung or said, Swift’s cast of body-diverse dancers on her Eras Tour has helped challenge the notion that only people of certain body sizes can perform on stage, the study authors noted.

When celebrities go public about mental health challenges they’ve faced, it can help reduce stigma and raise awareness around these conditions, according to the American Psychological Association