A US study of 8,957 adolescents found that owning a smartphone at age 12 is linked to higher risks of eating disorders. Researchers used data from 2018 to 2024 to show that 70% of kids had phones. Experts said, "The timing of ownership may be associated with eating disorder risk."
A smartphone in a child’s hands at 12 may be doing more than connecting them to friends. A large US study that may have a message for Indian parents as well- has found that owning one at that age is associated with greater symptoms of eating disorders, including binge-eating and tying self-worth to weight.
The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), is a cohort analysis drawing on 8,957 adolescents in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which recruited participants from 21 sites across the US.
Schools were selected through a stratified, probability-based sample and oversampled by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and urbanity to reduce sampling bias.
Percentages were weighted using American Community Survey data so they represent population estimates.
Researchers ran cross-sectional and two-year longitudinal analyses on data from years 2 to 6 of the study, covering 2018 to 2024, using generalised linear models. The data were analysed in 2025 and 2026.
The headline number was how common early ownership has become in the country: 70% of participants had a smartphone by age 12. Ownership was linked, both at a single point in time and over the following two years, to a greater likelihood of eating disorder symptoms, which are linked with severe long-term physical, mental and metabolic consequences.
The authors underlined the findings suggest the timing of ownership may be associated with eating disorder risk, a question that had not been examined before, even as children get phones at ever younger ages.
The case in India is hardly different.
There is no government-backed data on mobile phone ownership or usage among kids in India but a McAfee study that came out in 2022 said that smartphone use in the country among children aged 10–14 years was 83 – 7% higher than the global average of 76% for the age group.
A POCKET FULL OF PRESSURE
According to experts, the significance of the findings lies in both scale and timing.
When seven in ten children own a phone by 12 – as is the case in the US – , even a modest increase in risk translates into a large number of young people. Early adolescence is also a period of rapid physical change and heightened sensitivity to peer approval, when views of the body and food take shape.
The longitudinal finding adds to the concern.
It indicates the association is not merely a snapshot of troubled teens who happen to use phones, but one that persists over time. The study is observational, so it cannot prove that phones cause eating disorders, but it marks timing as a factor worth taking seriously.
But the mechanism is less about the device than about what flows through it.
Dr Priyanka Mittal of the India Mental Health Alliance says what people consume on social media shapes “what feels desirable and what does not.” Smartphones, she explains, make that content available around the clock. The constant stream of instructions on what is right and wrong gradually changes everyday habits, eating among them.
Exposure to idealised body images, diet trends and unrealistic expectations about appearance can erode how young people feel about their bodies, what they consider healthy eating, and how they judge themselves against others.
Many, she warns, become vulnerable to body-image anxiety and go on to develop eating disorders.
BEYOND THE SCREEN: TIME CLOCK
That points to a limit of the usual advice on screen time.
Sweta Bothra, director of psychology services at Amaha, says parents should “look beyond hours online” and ask what children are watching and how it makes them feel.
She also added that persistent food avoidance, binging or anxiety about weight deserves professional attention rather than criticism, a reminder that shaming a child can deepen the problem.
For families, therefore, while the findings should not call for panic, they can carry messages on deliberate choices about when a child gets a phone, what they see on it, and how openly they can talk about it, specialists emphasise.