SkinnyTok fans are literally starving for content.
The disturbing viral movement promotes extreme weight-loss tactics, restrictive eating and toxic “discipline” — with thinness, not health, being the ultimate goal.
Experts have warned The Post that it’s far from a harmless fad, fueling viewers’ mental and physical health issues — while not actually fueling their bodies.
And thanks to TikTok’s algorithm, it may be even more dangerous than more than diet culture ever was before.
Down the rabbit hole
The trend is gaining traction across all social media platforms. But on TikTok alone, over 64,000 posts are dedicated to the troubling trend — and that’s not including the ones that don’t include the #SkinnyTok hashtag but still find their way to interested users.
What makes SkinnyTok particularly dangerous is TikTok’s algorithm, which is designed to deliver a glut of related content once you start watching and engaging with it.
“These algorithms are a powerful driver of content that iterates upon itself. Looking at one TikTok with toxic body image content will teach the algorithms to send you more and more and more until your feed has become an avalanche of toxic content,” Dr. Jillian Lampert from the Emily Program, a national eating disorder care provider, told The Post.
According to research published last year, just eight minutes of exposure to implicit and explicit pro-anorexia TikTok content can damage a young woman’s self-esteem and increase her risk of disordered eating.
TikTok’s guidelines state that the app “does not allow showing or promoting disordered eating and dangerous weight loss behaviors,” and at first glance, the platform appears to discourage this trend. Searching “SkinnyTok” prompts the message: “You are more than your weight,” along with links to eating disorder resources.
However, just below these links is a deluge of videos that offer “thin-spiration” and hacks to suppress hunger, skip meals and manage starvation.
The physical downsides
While it is possible to use the algorithm to curate more positive content, Lampert notes that sensational messaging is more compelling.
“SkinnyTok content is particularly dangerous because it presents extreme and medically unsound weight loss methods under the guise of health and wellness,” Dr. Asim Cheema, an Internal Medicine specialist at Your Doctors Online told The Post.
“Hunger isn’t a sign of fat burning but a crucial biological signal for nutrition. Ignoring it leads to metabolic problems, harder weight management, malnutrition and cognitive issues.”
Dr. Asim Cheema
“This trend often reaches audiences who may not have the tools or knowledge to easily tell apart credible health advice from practices that could be misleading or even harmful.”
Some of these harmful practices include misinterpreting or responding inappropriately to the body’s natural hunger signals.
“Hunger isn’t a sign of fat burning but a crucial biological signal for nutrition. Ignoring it leads to metabolic problems, harder weight management, malnutrition and cognitive issues,” said Cheema.
What’s more, hyperfixating on deprivation makes eating more of a punishment than a pleasure.
“Viewing food as mere fuel neglects important social and psychological aspects of eating, often resulting in food guilt, social anxiety and orthorexia — an unhealthy obsession with ‘correct’ eating,” said Cheema.
Dangerous advice
SkinnyTok content often champions extreme fasting and promotes the practice of eating a single meal per day, habits that can wreak havoc on the body.
“One-meal-a-day approaches cause dangerous metabolic shifts, including hypoglycemia, muscle loss and organ dysfunction. These practices trigger harmful starvation responses that damage metabolism,” said Cheema.
“SkinnyTok dangerously glorifies content that encourages people to take drastic measures to change their bodies.”
Dr. Jillian Lampert
Using coffee and water to suppress appetite is another hallmark of SkinnyTok influencers; however, as Cheema explains, overdoing either beverage can trigger dangerous electrolyte imbalances like hyponatremia, increase acid reflux, exacerbate digestive problems and heighten anxiety.
“SkinnyTok both dangerously glorifies content that encourages people to take drastic measures to change their bodies as well as further ensnares people already struggling with their body image and thoughts of size and shape, reinforcing the notion that being thin at all costs is the norm,” said Lampert.
Teens are particularly vulnerable to SkinnyTok because they’re wired to seek approval and belonging — and their development can be derailed by food deprivation.
“Growing bodies require consistent, balanced nutrition that these restrictive practices don’t provide. Nutritional deficits during critical growth periods can impact physical development and cognitive function,” said Cheema.
Some of those physical side effects include hair loss, brittle nails, compromised immune function, brain fog and difficulty concentrating.
A return of “pro-ana” culture
Experts say SkinnyTok is a rebrand of early-2000s “pro-ana” (pro-anorexia) communities — now with a Gen Z gloss and a dubious veneer of “wellness.”
“Dangerous behaviors marketed as ‘wellness hacks’ make it difficult for individuals to recognize they’re developing serious medical conditions,” Cheema explained. That means they don’t realize what they’re doing is unhealthy until they’ve done real damage.
According to a 2023 study, a staggering 22% of kids and teens show signs of eating disorders, while the CDC revealed that ER visits among teen girls with eating disorders doubled during the pandemic.
That uptick directly coincided with increased social media usage.
“The more people you see doing something, no matter how extreme or counterintuitive … the more likely we are to begin or try that behavior.”
Dr. Jillian Lampert
Peer validation and virality play a decisive role in normalizing unhealthy habits online, Lampert noted.
“The more people you see doing something, no matter how extreme or counterintuitive, the more encouragement that is aimed at us from peers, the more likely we are to begin or try that behavior,” she said.
She believes the increasingly common practice of “digital self-cyberbullying” also amplifies disordered eating.
“It’s someone scrolling for hours through videos and photos, ingesting the messages, images, falsehoods and practices that proliferate on their feed and then comparing themselves to what they are seeing,” she said.
“This yields the conclusion that they are not good enough, thin enough, attractive enough, or motivated enough, which fuels an urge to change their eating and activity behaviors in an attempt to achieve what they see.”
For many, these limitations prove too hard to maintain, so they go back to their old behaviors. But others adopt these new habits with an obsessive vigor.
“Continual assessment of appearance and eating habits can make a person hyperfixate on perceived flaws, fueling the cycle of eating less, which often leads to overeating, and overexercising, which leads to fatigue and loss of control around food. It is a vicious cycle that quickly spirals from external messaging to internal criticism.”
While the proliferation of disordered eating is clearly fed by social media, awareness continues to improve due in part to transparency around mental health issues and reduced stigma in seeking treatment.
Yet the battle rages on.
“There appear to be more people who understand and promote body acceptance, but there also seems to be a resurgence in the prominence of messaging in various media around the drive to thinness. In essence, a growth of both ends of the extreme,” said Dr. Brad Smith, CMO from the Emily Program.
More than 28 million Americans are expected to develop an eating disorder in their life, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.
They are the second-deadliest mental illness and result in more than 10,000 deaths every year.
If you or someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder, you can get help. Call the National Eating Disorder Association helpline at (800) 931-2237 or visit nationaleatingdisorders.org.
