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I grew up in the '90s, the days of idealizing “heroin chic” bodies and phrases like “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. Magazine covers would routinely point out when celebrities gained or lost a few pounds, and “slim tricks” and diet tips would appear within the pages.
The focus was rarely on health, but almost always on the number on the scale. Diet culture felt impossible to escape.
And little by little, we undid some of that
We attempted to replace skinny supremacy with an understanding that all bodies are good bodies. We began to emphasize health and fitness over making our bodies as small as possible. And we finally started to popularize the idea that commenting on a person’s body or weight is just not acceptable.
With all those changes underway, body positivity — or at least body neutrality — felt within reach.
But recently, things have taken a different turn
If you spend time on TikTok, chances are you’ve found yourself on "SkinnyTok", the side of the app that’s dedicated to talking about getting and/or staying — you guessed it — skinny.
In this corner of the Internet, people share “what I eat in a day” videos (these videos often open with quippy hooks like “what I eat in a day to stay skinny”), weight loss tips, and perhaps most damaging of all, videos essentially shaming people for not having a specific body type. Think “you’re not fat because of your hormones, you’re fat because you won’t stop eating”.
If it sounds controversial… well, it is. Especially when you think about how far we’ve come in our acceptance of all body types, and how much things have changed since the era of 100 calorie snack packs and chain smoking to stay thin.
SkinnyTok, of course, puts a modern spin on things
SkinnyTok creators often talk about the power of taking walks, many of them sharing their high step goals (we’re talking 20,000 steps or so — which let’s be real, most people simply don’t have the time for).
They talk about portion control and eating more fruit, and moving your body more. And when you look at it through that lens, SkinnyTok's messages do feel like an improvement: Taking more steps, eating more whole foods, and being mindful of portions are all healthy habits, not necessarily things to only be done in the name of weight loss.
Many (but not all) of the videos featured in SkinnyTok content feature creators eating what seems like perfectly balanced diets that include a sufficient amount of food. In many cases, this is not the “we subsist on Diet Coke and rice cakes” diet messaging we once heard.
Fans of SkinnyTok hold on to this: They say the creators making these videos are promoting healthier habits than the ones we were exposed to in the ‘90s.
And there’s a point there
But the issue with SkinnyTok isn’t the methods these creators employ to get or stay slim. It’s often not about what they’re eating or how much they’re walking. I'm not a dietitian or a nutrition expert, but I think it can be perfectly healthy to watch what you eat or remain mindful of your portion sizes. I even think it's okay to have some aesthetic goals for your body, as long as those goals don't come at the expense of your overall physical and mental health.
The bigger issue here is the overall messaging. The idea that being skinny is the most important thing. The idea that anything else is unacceptable. And mostly, the idea that anyone who doesn’t have this specific body type is lazy and unmotivated and making excuses.
Some of these creators say that the body positivity movement took things too far
And maybe there’s a tiny kernel of truth there. Weight does have health implications beyond the aesthetic…and intuitive eating, which gained a lot of popularity in the past few years, won’t work for everyone and isn't the magical solution some social media content makes it out to be.
On top of that, a lot of people have felt lied to: We see thin celebrities and influencers who claim they “eat everything”, and many of us have grown skeptical of those claims, especially as more and more people are taking drugs like Ozempic to maintain a specific body type in secrecy. It’s along the same lines of having plastic surgery, getting Botox and filler, and not owning up to it. Because while you have a right to do what you want with your appearance, and while you don’t owe anyone answers, this is a murky issue. The impact all these things have on beauty standards and societal ideals can’t be ignored.
We have to think about how that denial of all the things people do in the name of looking a certain way affects real people who wonder, “Why don’t I look that way?” without having all the information.
On top of that, we’ve been sold so many myths about “magical weight loss secrets,” “fat-burning foods,” and “life-changing weight loss pills”. We’ve been told that weight loss is about cutting carbs or intermittent fasting or the keto diet, or avoiding processed foods. SkinnyTok content typically doesn’t rely heavily on these fad diets. Instead, these creators credit calorie deficits, counting calories, and moving more as the solution to weight loss…and after seeing so many diet fads come and go, this simplicity can feel a bit refreshing.
Things are being taken too far in the opposite direction
But SkinnyTok feels like a massive overcorrection here. Some people say, “At least these creators are being honest about how they maintain their body types. At least they’re not pretending to eat everything and never gain weight".
And there is something to be said for this transparency. But at some point, transparency feels like insensitivity. Body types are different. We can all eat the same way and not look the same way. The idea that your body is only a product of the way you treat it is not just offensive, it’s also wrong.
Bodies fluctuate over time, metabolisms vary, and we all have different builds. But SkinnyTok creators insist it's as simple as just being disciplined, watching portions, and not being lazy.
That’s not okay either. In fact, it’s fat-phobic and leads us down a dangerous path. And that’s really the crux of the SkinnyTok issue: It isn’t just about the content itself, but the larger cultural and health implications beyond the short videos.
And of course, controversial, extreme messages on social media always perform better thanks to our algorithms, which means the most extreme 'skinny' takes are the ones that'll cross many people's feeds.
We need to think about how this will affect impressionable people
I’m in my thirties, and I’ve worked really hard to maintain a healthy relationship with food. For me, like most women, body image will probably always be a work in progress, but progress has been made.
But I worry about teens and young people, including my own kids, who will grow up with these messages. I know diet culture affected many of my peers in some very real, decidedly unhealthy ways, and I wish we could have kept progressive narratives in place for the sake of generations to come.
But unfortunately, SkinnyTok doesn’t seem to be going anywhere — and as we all know, what starts on our small screens rarely stays there. We will undoubtedly see larger cultural influences from this content… and a lot of our progress towards a more body-positive culture will be threatened because of it.
Zara Hanawalt is a freelance journalist and mom of twins. She's written for outlets like Parents, MarieClaire, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Motherly, and many others. In her (admittedly limited!) free time, she enjoys cooking, reading, trying new restaurants, and traveling with her family.