Graphic by Audrey Kim
Julia Arboleda
News Reporter
Every year, NPR hosts its Student Podcast Challenge (SPC), where high school and college students from across the country compete to create engaging podcasts about issues of interest. Sophomores and juniors from Newton South’s NMC (New Media Communities) English classes worked together to write and produce podcasts about a topic they were passionate about and submitted their work to the news station.
Last week, finalists for the SPC were chosen, and among them were Newton South juniors Sydney Finkelstein, Cecilia Demolli, Rhea Basile-Maslowe, Xantine Agar, Maddy DeJohn, and Florencia Feoli. Their podcast dives into the effects of toxic social media trends and personal accounts of eating disorders. From the “What I Eat In A Day” trend on TikTok to general comments and posts about the “ideal” body type, the students discuss and share what they see online as well as their own experiences with eating disorders.
“As someone who has struggled with disordered eating and has friends and family that struggle with eating disorders, I think it is very important to spread awareness. Talking about eating disorders and people’s recoveries is a really helpful tool in showing that recovery is possible,” says Rhea Basile-Maslowe.
Eating disorders are far from new, but social media has undoubtedly increased the number of people subject to them and has created a void in which people tend to compare their bodies to the “perfect” ones portrayed online. As quoted from the podcast, “Obviously, there’s so much content out there that’s photoshopped or retouched that kind of just skews everyone’s perception of the real world. Especially little kids—they don’t have the knowledge to know that that’s not real.”
Social media apps can be the direct cause of a user’s disordered eating while also heightening the severity of it. In addition, the effects of social media make the path to recovery for those struggling much harder. With so many triggering, negative, and hurtful posts and their attached comment sections, it is almost impossible to avoid hateful self-comparison.
Editor Sydney Finkelstein talks about making the podcast: “It was a long process, but listening to the end result and hearing it all come together made it worth it. Listening to the stories of the girls we interviewed and seeing the results of our survey made the making of this podcast hard. It’s difficult to deal with such a sensitive topic because you want to make sure you do it justice.”
When asked what they hoped teens at South would take away from the podcast, their responses were all along the same lines. Nobody is alone in struggling with eating disorders or body image issues.
“On one side, I hope that those struggling with eating disorders feel heard and know that there are ways to get help and people that they can reach out to. And for those that didn’t know a lot about EDs before, I hope the podcast is able to teach them something,” explains Agar.
The complete podcast can be found here. (TW: this podcast contains mentions of disordered eating, which some listeners may find disturbing).
The NPR article with a complete list of the finalists can be found here.
