The phrase “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” was uttered by the supermodel Kate Moss in a 2009 interview as her personal mantra. This line, later taken up by the pro-anorexia phenomenon Pro Ana, is emblematic of the trend that existed in the 2000s around thinness as a beauty ideal, also known as Heroin chic. Through fashion and luxury trends, but also on social media, we are seeing a return of this beauty ideal today. With it comes the emergence of a viral trend on social media, and particularly TikTok, called SkinnyTok.
In 2025, the SkinnyTok trend, whose name comes from the contraction of the words skinny and TikTok, is extremely present on the app and features coded videos extolling extreme thinness. Often categorised with the hashtag #skinnytok or #skinny, these videos convey the idea that thinness is synonymous with control, and the only possible definition of beauty. The content on offer includes tips for skipping meals or ignoring hunger, content that encourages comparison with others, particularly the creators of this kind of content, as well as aggressive motivational videos. To do so, the videos posted by influencers follow several codes of Hustle culture (the culture of hyper-productivity). SkinnyTok content thus consists of short, face-to-camera videos in which the person uses an aggressive tone and short, striking slogans to convey a lifestyle in which food is seen as the enemy. Slogans such as “your stomach isn’t growling, it’s applauding you for not eating”, “eat big, be big, eat small, be small”, are deliberately shocking and guilt-inducing, so as to stick in the mind and make the audience watch these videos to the end. Among the coded videos posted under the hashtag #Skinnytok, it is very common to find body checking content. This practice consists of making a very precise and regular comparison of one’s body (measurements, size, weight, blemishes, etc.) on video (Munro E. 2024). This behaviour, which shows particularly strong control over one’s physical appearance, encourages comparison and can have a negative impact on self-esteem.
This trend exposes a teenage audience to lifestyles that can be dangerous for both mental and physical health, indirectly extolling several forms of eating disorders. In this respect, SkinnyTok recalls the Pro-ana phenomenon in its overall message. The pro-ana phenomenon, which has existed since the creation of forums in the late 1990s, consists of a group of people with eating disorders who communicate on these subjects through groups and forums on the internet. This movement, which has the characteristics of a community (shared vocabulary, goals, rules of conduct, etc.), connects people with eating disorders such as anorexia (called Ana) or bulimia (called Mia), who give each other advice to continue their weight loss or to hide these behaviours from their loved ones. First considered as spaces promoting anorexia, “pro-ana” sites were the subject of a bill aiming to make them illegal in 2015 (a bill ultimately abandoned). Since then, several studies have highlighted that these sites were also, and above all, a particularly open space for speaking and for information about their members’ disorders. Moreover, these online communication spaces were more or less hidden, and only people actively interested in these subjects found themselves on these platforms.
This underlines the fundamental difference with the SkinnyTok trend, which can appear on the recommendations page of any TikTok user. Indeed, this social network’s algorithm is designed to offer content that interests the audience, selecting the videos to show according to several criteria. First, the person’s interactions with the content offered (saves, mentions, comments, follows), but also and above all the time the viewer spends on a single video. Thus, by watching a video in full, the consumer tells TikTok that they like a certain type of content, which will be offered to them again and more and more regularly. Having watched a video from this trend once or twice is therefore enough to influence the content the algorithm offers on the recommendations page.
This creates a risk for users of being bombarded with this ideology of thinness, even though it was not initially a point of interest for them. The guilt-inducing discourse and the glorification of thin bodies can then have a significant impact on the viewer’s self-esteem and eating. The question of self-esteem, although multifactorial, was one of the points of interest of a study carried out by the Australian researchers Blackburn and Hogg in 2024 on young women. It showed that brief exposure (less than 10 minutes) to this kind of content could have an immediate effect on body satisfaction.
Moreover, creators deliberately make no explicit mention of eating disorders. This absence of clinical terminology makes moderation on the app harder and can convey dangerous messages, glorifying an unhealthy body ideology and a troubled relationship with food. In the case of people with eating disorders, increased exposure to SkinnyTok content can aggravate the pre-existing disorder (Dondzilo, Rodgers and Dietel, 2024).
Following repeated requests from European regulators in particular, the TikTok app is trying to regulate this kind of content, notably by moderating mentions of SkinnyTok or by adding prevention messages when a user searches for this word on the app. However, this moderation does not seem to be sufficient, and creators of this type of content find ways to get around it.
There are several ways to influence the TikTok algorithm so that it no longer offers SkinnyTok content. First, it is possible to report the videos, or block the content creators who promote it. Then, through the app’s settings, it is possible to delete the history of videos watched, or reset the recommendations page. Finally, it is possible to influence the algorithm by manually searching for topics of interest, until the recommendations page offers them too. Particularly for teenagers, it is important to provide spaces to talk and to unpack and discuss the images they see on social media, which can be hard to make sense of and can have consequences for how they see themselves and the world.
The SkinnyTok phenomenon is only a small part of a broader trend on social media, which consists of offering content related to diets, nutrition and dietetics in general. According to a study of several hundred videos with dietary content on TikTok, those showing disordered eating represent 6.4% of the sample of 250 videos (from Diet culture on Tiktok ; a descriptive content analysis).
Natacha Lesage
Sources :
Aubery, L. (2025). Le retour du culte de la minceur.
Blackburn, M. R., & Hogg, R. C. (2024, août 7). #ForYou? The impact of pro-ana TikTok content on body image dissatisfaction and internalisation of societal beauty standards.
Dondzilo, L., Rodgers, R. F., & Dietel, F. A. (2024). Association between engagement with appearance and eating related TikTok content and eating disorder symptoms via recommended content and appearance comparisons. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 57(2), 458–462.
Munro, E., Wells, G., Paciente, R., Wickens, N., Ta, D., Mandzufas, J., Lombardi, K., & Woolard, A. (2024). Diet culture on TikTok: A descriptive content analysis. Public Health Nutrition, 27(1), e169.
Tubaro, P., & Casilli, A. A. (2017, 2 février). Réprimer les sites «pro-ana» : une fausse bonne idée. CNRS Le journal.
The Peculiar Club. (2025). Internet nous rend MALADE. (skinnytok = le nouveau Tumblr).
Casilli, A., & Tubaro, P. (2016). Le phénomène « pro-ana » : Troubles alimentaires et réseaux sociaux. Presses des Mines.
