TikTok’s Body Image Problem
Sonia Chajet Wides, ‘21
May 2020
Trigger warnings: Eating disorders, body image
In the early 2010s, a dangerous and disturbing trend, dubbed “an epidemic” by The Atlantic, gained popularity on sites like Tumblr and Pinterest. Called “thinspiration,” (“thinspo” for short) the trend garnered posts and blogs. People, especially young girls, would dedicate entire pages to photos of flat stomachs and emaciated bodies with visible ribs as a means of “inspiration” for those trying to lose weight. The trend had extreme manifestations, like pro-anorexia blogs with tips for disordered eating, and more casual ones like “fitspo,” which the Huffington Post called “thinspo in a sports bra” in 2012. Above all, it contributed to a damaging culture of self-hatred and normalization of disordered eating.
I’d heard about thinspo in the past, but I was lucky enough to have never experienced it first hand. However, I’ve recently begun to notice scattered manifestations of its messages on the app that a lot of us are glued to: TikTok. While on TikTok, I’ve seen various examples of dangerous thinking about body image. One of the first things I noticed was how normalized comments that invoked eating disorders were-- on TikTok, you can commonly find comments on videos of thinner girls that say things like “I’m not hungry anymore” or “I just put down my [insert food].” Some are duets with the videos where a user can be seen watching the original video and then putting down some item of food that’s in their hand. A recent trending sound features a teenage girl shrieking, “So you think I’m skinny” and then the alternative “So you think I’m huge,” which people pair with videos of things that make them feel each way. Another trend has been (usually thin) TikTokers posting videos with all their clothing measurements in the hopes of getting scouted by modeling agencies, which are rife with comments praising those bodies as the ultimate goal.
The comments on TikTok are also often more focused on the creator’s body than I have seen on other social media apps, to an unhealthy extent. Some of the app’s young stars like the D’Amelio sisters and Addison Rae have even had to make statements about how body shaming on the app affects them. On an algorithmic level, body standards seem to be partially perpetuated by the app itself. In March, internal documents from TikTok revealed that “the app’s creators reportedly put policies in place that intentionally suppress videos… showing ‘abnormal body shapes’... and other physical traits that the app’s creators deemed unfit for their platform,” according to Shape. Body-positive and plus size TikTokers have also shared experiences of having their videos taken down despite their similarities in content to videos made by TikTokers with skinny bodies. Based on who is popular on TikTok, there is a clear “ideal body type” being communicated, and certain physical features are seen as trends.
In the teen realm, I think the main manifestation of questionable body politics is in the pressures around eating and exercising. “What I Eat in a Day” videos are abundant and often feature very little food, and so are videos with workout and diet trends to achieve the same one body type. I noticed a few weeks ago that these videos were affecting the way I saw myself; I had adopted the mindset that I needed to change my body, based on the culture of TikTok where that is the prevailing mindset. Concerned about this trend in my mind, I wanted to see if other people felt the same.
Credit: Tik Tok
I talked to a few teens about their recent experiences with body image on TikTok, and I received a lot of the same answers. For one thing, everyone said that they see a lot of content on their For You Pages about eating and exercising, and have seen more of that type of content since the start of social distancing. Most people I talked to also said that their body image had changed due to TikTok. “I could see it spiraling into something where I change my eating and exercising habits and how I see myself when I look in the mirror,” said one 16-year-old girl, “when I see workout videos, there’s this voice that’s like ‘I should be doing that.’” Another girl said that “the workout videos are not great, and the eating videos literally make me start crying.” Most people expressed that they feel that the general message on TikTok includes a strong pressure to exercise to achieve a certain body type.
People’s concerns centered around the fact that, in reality, everyone’s body is different regardless of a shared diet or workout strategy. Due to this, TikTok’s “body ideal” is setting people up for negative self image and disordered eating. Changing one’s eating and exercising habits out of self-hatred and a desire to fit an arbitrary norm, rather than because of self-love or care, is dangerous. This idea is perpetuated implicitly and explicitly on TikTok. As soon as schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people began posting about the things they wanted to achieve in quarantine. Exercising, particularly to get a flat stomach, quickly became a typical part of that list, revealing the message embedded on TikTok and in our culture: that there is one right body and it should be everyone’s goal to achieve it, just like they would a quarantine art project or their schoolwork. Even the trending TikTok workouts blatantly admit this in their titles that promise flat stomachs, small waists, and big butts. It doesn’t help that these standards are then reinforced by aforementioned comment culture on the app, the abundant videos of teenage boys describing what they think are ideal physical traits for girls to have, and the issues with the algorithm itself.
Another main concern that teens had is that on TikTok, it’s easy to lose the critical thinking that we might still hang onto on other apps like Instagram or Twitter. “I’ll see something on TikTok and everything I’ve ever been taught is screaming at me that that’s a really toxic mindset and yet I feel myself slipping into it all the time,” one person said, attributing this to how TikTok is all about mindlessly scrolling and absorbing what you’re seeing, rarely stopping to engage in a sort of social way. This causes these messages to be instantly internalized, instead of us taking a second to think about how they actually don’t align with our ways of thinking.
Teens enjoy TikTok because of the shared jokes and trends. It’s all fun and games when this aspect is about Gen-Z humor or other nostalgia, but when manifestations of thinspo and self-hatred get snuck in with those, it can be very dangerous.
There are, however, lots of creators on TikTok working to change this culture. One of these is Britanni Lancaster (@brittanilancaster), a 22-year-old whose videos about body positivity, intuitive eating, and eating disorder recovery have gained well-deserved traction (in fact, one teen girl I interviewed brought her up). I reached out to hear what her thoughts are on how TikTok’s body culture can improve. “I think that body culture on TikTok has more of a negative and joking tone to it than other social media apps, which can be very harmful to users,” she said via email last week, “TikTok videos that encourage eating disorders or negative self image can potentially have severe effects.” Brittani’s advice to users is to skip/swipe up on videos that promote negative body image, both to prioritize their own wellbeing as well as to not contribute to the success of those videos. “I really encourage people to make videos about uplifting, positive, and beneficial topics. TikTok will become a better place by bringing more positivity and awareness to the app,” she said.
Huge strides have been made these past few years to see health and bodies in a much more nuanced and holistic way. It would be troubling to watch people in our generation regress to unrealistic body standards, and the norm of diet culture that comes along with them. If you notice that things you’re seeing online are affecting how you view your own body, please take care in prioritizing the restoration of your own mental health. What we can all do is make an effort to keep our critical thinking in check as we indulge in the crazy world of TikTok.
If you or someone you know needs support with disordered eating, you can call or chat the National Eating Disorders Association helpline at 800-931-2237.