Experts warn weight loss TikToks can cause “psychological harm”

People, especially women, who spend just eight minutes watching weight loss TikTok videos can result in psychological harm, a new study shows.

The study, which was published on August 7, suggests that women who spend five to eight minutes watching TikTok videos – especially pro-anorexia content – could damage a young woman’s self-esteem and increase her risk of disordered eating.

“Our study showed that less than 10 minutes of exposure to implicit and explicit pro-anorexia TikTok content had immediate negative consequences for body image states and internalization of appearance ideals,” the researchers from Charles Sturt University in Australia said.

“Psychological harm can occur for young female TikTok users even when explicit pro-anorexia content is not sought out and when TikTok use is of a short duration,” they added.

The researchers interviewed 273 women about their TikTok watching habits and their body image before half of the participants were asked to watch seven to eight minutes of disordered eating content from TikTok.

This included videos of young women starving themselves, providing weight loss tips such as eating ice and chewing gum to reduce hunger, or promoting workouts or juice cleanses while showing off their cinched waists.

Tomáš Lištiak/Unsplash

Participants watch videos about disoriented eating, including eating ice

The other half were instead told to watch neutral content with nature, cooking, and animal themes.

Both groups reported a decrease in body image satisfaction after screening the videos. Those exposed to pro-anorexia content felt especially worse about themselves while internalizing the belief that it is important to be thin.

The researchers also claimed that women who used TikTok more than two hours a day reported more disordered eating behaviors, but it was not a significant pattern.

To combat this problem, the study authors are recommending “more stringent controls and regulations” on pro-anorexia, disordered eating, and body-related TikTok content.

They wrote: “There are current steps being taken to delete dangerous content, including blocking searches such as ‘#anorexia,’ however, there are various ways users circumvent these controls and further regulation is required.”

Data for this study was collected in mid-2021, nearly three years before TikTok updated its community guidelines in April 2024 to crack down on harmful weight loss content. This means that the platform now doesn’t allow “showing or promoting disordered eating and dangerous weight loss behaviors.”