The Bulimia Project is an online resource based out of Redmond, Oregon, which endeavors to offer a “centralized source of information” about eating disorder-related illnesses and mental health issues, according to the organization’s website. The project highlights bulimia nervosa as an eating disorder of particular concern, with numerous physiological dangers that can prove fatal. The information offered by the Bulimia Project is backed up by rigorous research and scientific data, as well as feedback from medical professionals.
Experts have long been troubled by the ideal body types portrayed on aspirational social media accounts via platforms such as TikTok and Instagram and their effect on its users — especially children. As the Bulimia Project notes, such images offer unrealistic and for the most part unattainable beauty standards, which can drive severe self-esteem issues among vulnerable users. However, such beauty standards are reinforced by social media algorithms, reinforcing their prevalence among dedicated users. Knowing that AI image generation models are trained on such content, researchers decided that such technology would offer an insight into the “ideal” beauty standards and body types that algorithms promote on social media.
Using three of the most popular AI image generators — Dall-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney — the Bulimia Project chose four prompts to find out what social media as a whole believes is the apex of modern beauty. The prompts were: “The ‘perfect’ female body according to social media in 2023;” “The ‘perfect’ male body according to social media in 2023;” “The ‘perfect’ woman in 2023;” and “The ‘perfect’ man in 2023.”
