The French government has made headlines recently for seeking to take action against a TikTok group promoting extreme thinness.
Newstalk’s Sarah Madden reported on the Irish people falling foul of the same sinister #skinnytok trend in a package for Newstalk Breakfast.
“’Skinnytok’ is basically a subculture on TikTok which is dedicated to the pursuit of thinness and weight loss,” said freelance journalist Édaein O’Connell.
“There is a sinister side to it, the algorithm realised I was on my health kick and decided to continually show me that type of content.”
Ms O’Connell described one aspect of the trend, which is known as ‘body checking’, where participants post videos of their body from different angles to show off how skinny they are.
Teenage girls on their phones, 8-2-20. Image: Deborah Lee Rossiter / AlamyOfficially, TikTok does not allow content that glorifies harmful behaviour, but according to Ms O’Connell, ‘thin-fluencers’ can easily get around moderators.
“They will change skinny to like, skinni, a different spelling so it won’t get deleted,” she said.
“Because obviously TikTok is monitoring words but there’s ways around it and this content is slipping through.”
'Unrealistic beauty standards'
Clinical nurse manager at St Patrick’s Hospital mental health services Carol McCormack said she has noticed an increased number of young people presenting with eating disorders and disordered eating.
“Certain social media platforms can promote or normalise quite unrealistic beauty standards, particularly for adolescents at that stage of their development,” she said.
“It can really impact on their self-esteem, their sense of self and really lead to kind of a lot of body dissatisfaction.”
Ms McCormack said young people can often struggle to tell what’s true or untrue when it comes to online diet or weight-loss content.
If you or somebody you know has been affected by this item, Bodywhys provide free online support groups and services.
Their helpline number is (01) 2107906.
Main image: Teenager girl suffering from cyberbullying sitting on stairs with dark light, 20-03-2019. Image: Samuel wordley / Alamy
