David Baddiel's daughter Dolly's anorexia battle was made "more difficult" by social media.
David Baddiel opens up on daughter's painful anorexia battle
The 57-year-old comedian and his 20-year-old offspring detailed her private battle with an eating disorder, which left her "very, very sick" when she was 15, in the BBC Two documentary 'David Baddiel: Social Media, Anger And Us' at the weekend.
Dolly explained how being anorexic helped her identify with the perfect body image projected on apps such as Instagram.
David admitted to Dolly on the doc: “I was pained. I could tell it was causing you pain.”
She recalled: "In 2017, when I was 15, I was very, very sick for about three years with anorexia. I think social media made it much more difficult to recover.”
The dance student said on the programme: “There was a multitude of things that culminated in it happening.
"But once I was in it, I think social media made it much more difficult for me to recover.
“Anorexia and eating disorders in general are very competitive illnesses.
"Once I’d found this recovery community on Instagram, that identity of the anorexic was really easy to latch on to.
“It was an appealing identity because I really didn’t like who I was, which I think is quite common amongst teenagers.”
Dolly was treated at a hospital and credits joining an online eating disorder community with helping her through the ordeal.
She said: “After I was diagnosed, I entered that online eating disorder recovery space."
Dolly continued in an interview with The Guardian newspaper: “We weren’t allowed phones in hospital, but when I’d come out I’d struggle a lot and look at all this eating disorder content online and become all-consumed with the journeys of strangers.”
The stand-up - who has also a 17-year-old son called Ezra with actress wife Morwenna Banks - insisted his daughter's health would have benefited from not having social media.
He said: “Dolly would definitely have been better off without it.”
However, he didn't want to "disturb" her recovery, which is why her battle was kept private until now.
David explained: “This was Dolly’s thing, not mine, and it was so dangerous while it was going on that I thought, ‘I cannot disturb this in any way that might be counterproductive to her getting better’.”
David uses social media himself to promote his work, but he admitted it's very "addictive" and puts you at "risk of extreme hatred".
He said: “I wake up and reach for my phone and I’m looking through emails but I’m also looking at Twitter. Addiction that puts you at risk of extreme hatred is a weird thing to feel you’re addicted to.”
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