Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to work with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology to prevent online eating disorder content from contributing to poor mental health outcomes among children and young people.

Under the Government’s Online Safety Act, all in-scope services are now required to protect their users from illegal content, and platforms likely to be accessed by children need to prevent their users from accessing eating disorder content.

We are working closely with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Ofcom, and others as the Online Safety Act takes effect. This includes exploring further opportunities to address harmful pro-eating disorder material and misinformation shared on social media and websites.

Further research examining the causal relationship between exposure to online content and children’s health outcomes, including mental health, and how it might be mediated is needed and welcomed. Departmental policies will remain agile to emerging and future research in this space.