Today I look at how -despite "body positivity" trending at a corporate and brand level, anorexia has increased 100% over the last 10 years.
It's a sobering lesson on revealed vs professed preference - that is that what we say we want is not what we do, and a real bellwether than our girls are not ok.
It also points to future problems around mental health, loneliness - and even the shape of our increasingly precarious social security pyramids.
What are your thoughts? Is this all social media's fault? Where is the message breaking down?
And where else can you see a disconnect between revealed and stated preferences? - And what mistakes are you making in your decision making by confusing the two? (I see this a lot in management consulting trend reports that state "x% of your target market/ employees/ whatever say they will only buy from or work for a company that does/ says xyz" - but then in practice they go on buying and working for whoever has the lowest price or the nicest cost to company package... People lie, mostly to themselves. Actions are what counts.)
Read more:
Kids today : https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/05/the-zoomer-question/
100% increase in anorexia : https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/the-teen-mental-illness-epidemic
Meet the future : https://www.fluxtrends.com/innovation/index.html
Girls, girls, girls