Zara Mcdermott spoke at Sunderland Bede College about her BBC documentary on eating disorders. She discussed her personal struggle with an eating disorder that developed after appearing on the reality show Love Island. As a social media influencer, she found that even seemingly positive posts about health and diet can negatively impact followers and contribute to eating disorders. The event highlighted how social media portrayals often only show the positive aspects of people's lives and influenced, and that one negative post can dramatically affect someone. Zara's success on social media also opened opportunities for documentaries and presenting to raise awareness of eating disorders and the help available.

1. Networking Experience (complete one for each event and upload to your blog in the suitable post)
Title of the event, the date, and the venue
Zara Mcdermott – Disorder eating BBC documentary at Sunderland Bede college Thursday 17th
November 2022
Who was it with?
Zara Mcdermott talking about her own personal issues with an eating disorder, and there were
people from the production team of the documentary and production of other BBC shows.
Information about the person/company
what do they do?
Zara Mcdermott is a social media influencer who appeared on the reality TV show Love Island in
June 2018 for their fourth series. After Love Island she started to struggle with her weight and
diet. From this she developed an eating disorder and has been getting better and getting the help
she needs.
What is their history in the industry?
Zara has been doing social media ever since she came out of the Love Island villa. Her own
content consists of lifestyle, and she has been making documentaries and becoming a presenter.
Include images of the event, the location, the client
What have I learned?
From watching her documentary and listening to the answers to people’s question I have learnt
that even though social media gave her amazing opportunities, it still made her life bad and felt
like everything she was doing was not good enough for some people. I have laso learnt that social
media can make people develop eating disorders just by posting how healthy your meals are, as
their followers would want to physically look like them.

2. The knowledge aspect of this was you should always be aware of what you post on social media as
one post or comment can impact someone's life dramatically in a negative way as well as a
positive way.
More about the industry?
I have learnt more of what social media can to do influencers and not just followers. I have learnt
that people’s lives are not what we perceive, as we could think looking through Zara’s Instagram
stories that she is living her best life, and nothing is making her life bad because she is living some
people’s dreams. This is not the case and watching her documentary proved this as Zara and many
other influencers would only post the positive parts of their life rather than the negative.
Potential careers in social media and media
With Zara’s success with social media, it has opened loads of doors of different ways she can get
people to know her as a public figure. These types of opportunities have led her to have successful
platforms on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, but she has also had the opportunity to have her
own documentary on BBC Three on Eating disorders so people are aware of how they happen and
how much help you can get.
Do you know more about facilities or opportunities available to you?
I have learnt that there are loads of help there for people struggling with eating disorders. There is
also loads of different programmes people can participate as there is loads of different types of
eating disorders.