The following article discusses eating disorders. If you or someone you know has been affected by this please visit https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

If you haven’t stumbled upon TikTok’s latest trend skinnytok, you should count yourself lucky.

The skinnytok hashtag shows hundreds of TikTok’s promoting thinness and giving very dangerous advice.

It seems like the toxic diet culture of the 90s and early 2000s is back with a vengeance.

A lot of people might look back at the 90s and early 2000s with a sense of nostalgia but once you take off the rose-tinted glasses, it’s clear that it was actually a pretty awful era. Especially for women.

With Kate Moss saying things like “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” and heroin chic being on trend, life for anyone over a UK size eight was pretty miserable.

The toxic tabloids magazines were also thriving at this time. The cover stories would demean women in the public eye, shaming them for having cellulite and for having stomach rolls when they leaned over.

It seemed like every week, there was a new crazy diet sweeping the nation. Some of the most notable ones being the Special K diet (a 14-day programme that involves replacing two meals a day with a bowl of Special K and low-fat milk) and Jennifer Aniston’s baby food diet.

Hollie Donnelly, who was born in the late 80s, shared what her experience was like growing up:

“It was difficult growing up alongside it, it was in every magazine, tv show, film and there wasn't any alternative voice back then. Social media nowadays makes these ideas much more pervasive but it also allows people to find other ideas and communities that challenge diet culture. I'm not sure which is harder/better. But it definitely had a very negative impact on me, my relationship with food and my relationship with my body. I grew up feeling all wrong. It took decades to repair that damage.”

Hollie believes that diet culture has remained part of our society.

“I don't feel like diet culture every really left,” she stated. “The trend of what kind of body is most desirable and how to attain it changed, it always does, this keeps us trapped in a loop of discontentment with ourselves and makes sure we're willing to hand over money to correct our perceived 'flaws'. But I do think the trend to be as thin as possible has made a comeback.”

After years of scrutiny and failing to meet impossible standards, women were fed up and the body positivity movement started to flood social media feeds. Influencers such as Megan Jay Crabble were encouraging women to step away from diet culture and to embrace and love their bodies no matter what size or shape they were. And for a while, it seemed to be working.

But now it seems like history is repeating itself. And with social media, it might be even worse.

As of December 2024, TikTok has more than two billion monthly active users worldwide. That’s a lot of people being exposed to a lot of content.

And with skinnytok being all over everyone’s for you page (FYP) there’s a lot of concern about users being exposed to harmful content about weight and diet.

A survery on google forms looked into how young people’s relationships with food and body image.

The figures below show the results:

According to eating disorder charity Beat, 1.25 million people in the UK have an eating disorder. And with skinnytok on the rise, things might only get worse.

With toxic trends such as skinnytok, it’s important that those who use social media know how to protect themselves. Click on the “not interested" button, block any creators with harmful content and if all else fails, log off.

Hollie also had some great advice on dealing with diet culture:

“My tips would be to remember that these ideas are opinions, not facts, there is no objective truth to idea that one body is better than another.

“It's also not about your body, it's about your money and your power. Imagine how much more powerful we would be if we spent all the time, money and energy we do on diet culture, on our passions or causes that make a difference to the world we live in instead.

“And be kind to yourself, if you wouldn't say it to your best friend, don't say it to yourself.”

Skinnytok: is toxic 90s diet culture making a comeback?