*Breathe* Giving Your 12-Year-Old a Smartphone Didn't Ruin Their Health

Breaking down the new study on preteens, phones, and disordered eating

I’m tired y’all. Every few weeks, there's a new scary headline telling caregivers that a choice they’ve made about tech has harmed their child's wellbeing.

This week, it’s the headlines covering a new JAMA study claiming that giving a 12-year-old a smartphone increases their risk of eating disorder symptoms by age 14.

Before you let recent headlines make you feel guilty about giving your preteen a phone, take a deep breath. The study’s data tells a different story than the clickbait

1. The study measured phone ownership, not phone use

Parents of 12 year-olds were simply asked: Does your child own a smartphone?

The study didn't collect any data about the apps the child did or didn't have, whether these kids had social media on the phone, how many hours they spent with screens, what kinds of content they shared, or what they were watching on the device. A 12-year-old texting their parents for a ride home after soccer practice and a 12-year-old scrolling TikTok for #thinspo content for three hours a day were placed in the same phone category.

However, when the researchers attempted to explain the slight increase in eating disorder risk, they point toward other studies (including additional datasets from Dr. Ngata) about addictive app designs, problematic algorithms, and body-focused #looksmaxxing trends - all plausible explanations that could contribute to disordered eating, yet! Yet! Yeeeeeet....

Absolutely none of these factors were accounted in the study. Nope, not a single one of these potential influences that the researchers allude cause harm were actually measured in the study. Just phone ownership, which tells us absolutely nothing about what the participants had access to or how they were spending their time.

As a researcher and educator it's beyond frustrating that the variables that the study identifies as potentially contributing to increased risk weren't actually measured in the study. The actual relationship between phones and harm remains speculative.

2. The "no phone" group was still online

According to the study, kids without smartphones were slightly more likely to own tablets than kids without phones. A tablet provides the same access to the content, apps, and platform design features as a smartphone. In other words, the “no phone” group was still very much online.

Under this design, a preteen spending six hours a day browsing toxic beauty ideal content on an iPad is counted in the "no phone" group, whereas a preteen with an iPhone used primarily for music, FaceTime-ing grandparents, and texting teammates is considered to be at a higher risk than the tablet user - based solely on the device they were using. Research reveals that time on a device tells us almost nothing about wellbeing, so how could phone ownership tell us much about risk factors?

3. Self-reported questionnaires aren’t clinical diagnoses

I want to make it clear that no one in this study was diagnosed with an eating disorder. Kids answered a survey where checking that in the past two weeks they "rarely lost control of what they ate" or "rarely exercised excessively" counted as weight-control behavior and therefore an eating disorder risk. That's it.

Additionally, the study’s umbrella term for "inappropriate weight-control behavior" spans everything from diet pills, laxatives, and throwing up to exercising a lot, or only eating foods or drinks with minimal calories - behaviors with vastly different clinical risks.

Survey data can be useful. I frequently use it as a jumping off point in my own research. But, but buuuuuuuut, they have major limitations.

In my own research with youth, I’ve seen how incongruous survey data and interviews with teens can be. I've had a participant fill out a survey saying they "never" use an app, and 10 minutes later in an interview they tell me detailed stories about how they use that exact app. It’s not necessarily that kids lie (though they’ve certainly admitted to me that they lie on surveys), but rather it’s that how a participant (a preteen at that) interprets a survey question unprompted varies vastly from how they understand their lived experiences upon reflection.

Picture a 12-year-old going through a puberty-induced growth spurt who is suddenly ravenous, or a kid deep into a competitive sport trying to win a starting position on the team. Both could check those boxes without having anything resembling a clinical illness. This is because clinical eating disorders involve severity, duration, and distress - not a one-time self-reported symptom.

A far more accurate headline would be: "Teens check a box reporting they rarely experience at least one eating disorder symptom"

4. Headlines love relative percentages

By age 14, about 24% of kids who had owned a phone at 12 answered at least one question that is potentailly associated with a disordered eating symptom. This is compared to 16% of participants who didn't own a phone at 12. While the gap is significant, it also means 76% of kids with smartphones reported no symptoms at all. And rememeber, answer "rarely" still counted as a symptom.

The only risk that doubled was a question asking if participants tied their self-worth to weight: 3.5% of non-phone owners answered at least rarely vs. 7.8% for phone owners. I am not suggesting we ignore the participants who answered yes (although there's no causal evidence the phone is to blame). However, the finding,

When you look at the raw numbers across the board, I think it’s clear caregivers don't need to spend too much energy worrying that they got their child a phone at age 12:

• Binge eating: More than 90% of phone owners reported they never engaged in binge eating in the last two weeks

• Worrying about weight gain: More than 97% of phone owners reported that they never worried about weight gain, even rarely

• Self-worth tied to weight: More than 92% of phone owners reported that they didn't tie self-worth to weight at age 14

The risk narrative increases anxiety

Phone ownership at 12 is the norm: about 70% of 12-year-olds in this study owned a phone. For many working-class families, single or divorced parents, or households navigating complex schedules and family dynamics, a phone is a vital tool for safety and coordination. Yet when headlines frame device ownership as a health risk, they hand a systemic problem to individual parents while ignoring everything outside your living room:

• Platform design and predatory algorithms

• Schools and sports teams that run entirely on group chats

• The pervasive diet culture and weight stigma kids absorb everywhere

  
  

Alarmist reporting doesn't make kids safer, in fact, research shows it just fuels parental guilt and burnout.

What you can focus on

There's no conclusive data demonstrating that the age of device ownership itself causes disordered eating symptoms, much less diagnosable eating disorders. But specific media behaviors, content environments, and offline pressures might present risks.

Here’s some tips for caregivers that draws from research exploring young people's media practices (rather than binary of phone/no phone):

• Focus on media practices: Research highlights that taking/editing selfies and applying beautifying filters are can be more harmful to preteen body satisfaction than simply viewing photos. Filters alter skin tone and features to enforce Eurocentric ideals, creating a disconnect between virtual and real selves. Talk openly with your child about how filters manipulate reality.

• Build digital media literacy together: Co-view media together and teach youth to critically analyze what they see and who benefits from it

• Curate healthy feeds: Encourage youth to curate feeds with body positivity, self-compassion messaging, and diverse body shapes and to block or unfollow content that makes them feel insecure.

• Praise competence over appearance: Shift family modeling away from "body talk," dieting commentary, and appearance surveillance. Focus praise on what young bodies can do (strength, creativity, movement, adventures, endurance) rather than how they look.

• Maintain boundaries: Keep all devices out of bedrooms at night to safeguard sleep (one of the few areas we experts actually agree!). And be aware of how offline factors like peer weight-teasing, competitive sports pressures, and early pubertal distress can lead to unhealthy body beliefs or behaviors.

A first phone is a practical and complicated family decision that balances communication, safety, and maturity. Don't let alarmist clickbait convince you that giving your child a device ruined their health, instead focus on guiding how they navigate the world – both on their screens and on the other side of them.

Want to Go Deeper?

If you want to move past headlines and explore what the broader research says about youth, screen time, and mental health, check out these deep dives:

• Listen: Tune into this episode of the Screen Deep podcast. Dr. Ngata (who authored the study I've critiqued) provides a more nuanced analysis of what he and his team are learning about digital media and body image

  
  

• Read: Children & Screens has a helpful Parent Guide on Body Image and Media Use that synthesizes dozens of studies into practical, evidence-based guidance on co-viewing, media literacy, and feed curation.