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Video hosting YouTube has decided to restrict teenagers' access to videos about fitness, weight, and weight loss, snob.ru reports, citing The Guardian.
The platform's new policy is aimed at protecting the psychological health of young users from excessive exposure to recommendations that can form unrealistic standards of appearance and lifestyle. Although a single viewing of such content may be harmless, regular consumption can impose certain beauty standards and provoke teenagers to search for flaws in themselves.
Dr. Garth Graham notes: «As teenagers develop an idea of who they are and what their own standards are for themselves, repeated consumption of content with idealized standards that begins to form an unrealistic internal standard can lead to the formation of negative self-images in some.»
The innovation does not completely prohibit access to fitness content for users aged 13-17, but the algorithms will stop actively recommending such videos. The system is already operating in the United States.