“What you eat in public will show in private.” “Let it go to waste or it will go to your waist.” “Stop rewarding yourself with treats. You are not a dog.”
These are common aphorisms in a corner of the internet that proudly calls itself SkinnyTok. The uniform is leggings and a crop top, the smoothies are high in protein, and the rhetoric around body size feels both retrograde and profoundly of our post-Ozempic moment.
If you’re someone who has tried to divest yourself of diet culture, you’ll recoil when the first SkinnyTok videos hit your feed. Just seeing the word “skinny” in a viral hashtag can feel like you’ve been slapped across the face with a celebrity beach body-shaming tabloid from 2003.
The creators who post with this hashtag are as varied and complex as our relationships with our physical selves. On the relatively benign end, posts echo the “move more, eat less” sentiment you might hear from a trainer at the gym.
At the most extreme end of the spectrum is New York-based content creator Liv Schmidt, who was banned from TikTok in September 2024 for promoting disordered eating; Meta then restricted and demonetized her Instagram, too. Her cult followed her to a subscription-only group chat called The Skinni Societe, which had around 7,000 members paying $20 USD per month; last week, she announced a “rebirth of the group” to come in July.
In early June, TikTok went further in its restrictions, announcing that it is blocking all searches for the SkinnyTok hashtag as “it has been linked with extreme weight loss content.” Now, when you search for the term on the platform you reach the message “You are not alone,” and a link to resources such as the national eating disorder hotline.
What is most striking about SkinnyTok — there’s nothing new under the sun, including these tips — is how direct it is about something we’ve spent the past decade dancing around: we still live in a society that rewards thinness.
“This may be a little controversial, but one thing about SkinnyTok is that it tells the truth,” declared one TikTok poster. “Looks matter on how people treat you. I don’t make the rules. It is what it is. The next time you want to eat something…just think about how far pretty privilege gets you — and imagine how far skinny and pretty privilege will get you.”
If the “every body is beautiful at any size” sentiment advanced by the body positivity movement sometimes felt like a utopian fever dream that could evaporate as quickly as the plus-size collections retailers launched and then quietly shelved, SkinnyTok claims to be pragmatic about the realities of our world.
“I believe this content resonates with people because it speaks to a deeper truth. The body positivity movement played a crucial role in helping us move beyond the heroin chic ideal that many of us millennials grew up with. But over time, some might argue it swung too far in the opposite direction,” said Susanne Stoughton, a U.S.-based content creator who often posts with the SkinnyTok hashtag. “Eventually, the conversation has to return to health and personal accountability. The comments I see most often on my page reflect that — people saying how refreshing they find the honesty, how much they appreciate the directness, and how motivating it is to hear someone speak openly about these issues.”
Stoughton regularly reminds her over 85,000 TikTok followers to hit their calorie and protein goals — one viral video has over a million views — and shares tips such as: “There’s no such thing as a relationship with food. Food is an inanimate object. It’s always been about the relationship with yourself.”
Stoughton said that 85 per cent of her audience are women 35 to 54. This is the same cohort that lived through the “you look so skinny!” compliment era, and on to it being a Word That Must Not Be Spoken.
“I understand that the word ‘skinny’ can be triggering — and in many ways, that’s part of why the SkinnyTok niche draws so much attention on TikTok. It stops people in their scroll; they pause to watch, curious about the message behind it,” said Stoughton. “For a long time, ‘skinny’ felt like a taboo word to me as well. I once struggled with being underweight, so I’m deeply familiar with the complexity and controversy the term can carry.”
Since she began engaging with this niche, however, Stoughton says that her feelings about the word have shifted. “I’ve come to see that for most of my followers, skinny isn’t about a specific number or body type. It’s symbolic — a word that represents whatever their personal esthetic or health goal looks like,” she said. “It means feeling confident, strong, and in control.”
Stoughton believes in having frank conversations about body image and personal goals. “It’s possible to promote self-acceptance and still encourage self-improvement,” she said. “Everyone’s version of ‘healthy’ or ‘strong’ looks a little different, and I think we need to leave room for that. But I also believe that it’s OK — and even necessary — to have honest conversations about discipline, choices and long-term wellness. People are smarter, more self-aware, and more ready for that kind of dialogue than we often give them credit for.”
Toronto-based registered dietitian Abbey Sharp’s first exposure to SkinnyTok was via Liv Schmidt’s content. “Her posts were so overtly problematic, I was convinced it was trolling rage bait,” said Sharp, who often uses her podcast and social media to critique diet culture on social media. “At that point, the public also seemed to agree that the messaging echoed the pro-ED [eating disorder] thinspo content of the ’90s and 2000s. Unfortunately, the movement quickly picked up steam with many more creators building a following sharing these same hyper-restrictive tips. As a result, we’ve seen Skinnytok messaging go from obviously perverse to normalized and celebrated.”
Sharpe finds the rise of SkinnyTok “devastating” after all the work that was done to popularize body neutrality and body acceptance. “When we saw a reclamation of the word ‘fat,’ it was never to promote people finding unhealthy, disordered ways to become fat. It was about respecting folks of different body shapes and sizes, and acknowledging that they too can engage in health-promoting behaviours,” Sharp said. “But SkinnyTok is different because it’s explicitly suggesting people become skinny at any or all cost, including at the expense of their health.”
On a nutrition science level, Sharp takes issue with viral commandments like “eat small to be small,” which implies that to lose weight, all you need to do is eat as little as possible. She says research indicates the opposite is true, pointing to studies that show sustainable weight loss is tied to how well your diet reduces your hunger and appetite, and not exercise, metabolism or meal timing.
“The best way to do that is by focusing on calorie density,” Sharp said. “Research has found that even if the calories in the foods you choose changes, the total amount of food in grams that we eat in a day generally remains the same.” In other words, if you’re used to eating a plate full of food, you’ll be more likely to feel satisfied by eating a full plate of lower-calorie-foods than by just eating less.
While the rise of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro has majorly propelled this renewed focus on achieving and maintaining thinness, a key tenet of SkinnyTok is losing weight “the hard way,” as opposed to popping a pill (or shot).
“I am so happy that we have these powerful tools for those who can benefit. They truly are life-saving,” Sharp said. “But I do worry that the widespread use has started to make us feel a disconnect from our bodies — partially because it quite literally disconnects us from our natural hunger cues and survival mechanisms.” SkinnyTok could be seen as a “counter-movement” that sees some people “reclaim a sense of moral superiority over being ‘in control’ of their body.”
The desire for control in a world that refuses to bend in the direction of acceptance and equality for all bodies is one that won’t be shrinking anytime soon.
