8 Minutes on TikTok Can Harm Young Women’s Body Image

Almost half of young Australians are unhappy with their body appearance. Social media has exacerbated body image concerns among youth, causing them to compare themselves to others and pursue often unrealistic and unhealthy beauty standards.

TikTok, a platform where users create and view short videos, has gained over 1 billion users. However, harmful content, such as videos that promote disordered eating and extremely thin bodies, is widespread.

Limited Control Over TikTok Content

Since the majority of TikTok users are young, we aimed to investigate how this content impacts young women’s body image. Our recent study revealed that just eight minutes of watching TikTok videos centered on dieting, weight loss, and exercise led to an immediate decrease in body image satisfaction.

We recruited 273 female-identifying TikTok users aged 18 to 28 and randomly assigned them to two groups. Individuals with a history or current diagnosis of an eating disorder were excluded from the study.

Experimental Group Content

Participants in the experimental group watched a 7–8 minute compilation of “pro-anorexia” and “fitspiration” content directly from TikTok. These clips showed young women restricting their food intake and offering workout advice and dieting tips, such as juice cleanses for weight loss.

The control group viewed a 7–8 minute compilation of “neutral” TikTok videos featuring nature, cooking, and animals.

We measured body image satisfaction and attitudes toward beauty standards before and after the TikTok content using a series of questionnaires.

Both groups showed a decrease in body image satisfaction after watching the videos. However, those exposed to pro-anorexia content experienced the most significant drop in body image satisfaction and a heightened internalization of beauty standards.

Internalization occurs when individuals accept and identify with external beauty standards. While exposure to harmful social media content doesn’t always cause harm, internalizing this content can negatively impact body image.

Before the video experiment, participants answered general questions about their TikTok use. We also assessed their preoccupation with “healthy” eating and symptoms of disordered eating.

We found that participants who used TikTok for more than two hours a day reported more disordered eating behaviors than those who used it less frequently. However, this difference was not statistically significant, meaning it could be due to chance.

On a scale measuring eating disorder symptoms, participants who reported high (2–3 hours a day) and extreme (more than 3 hours a day) TikTok use scored just below the threshold for clinically significant eating disorder symptoms.

This suggests that more than two hours a day of TikTok exposure may be linked to disordered eating, though further research is needed to confirm this.

Widespread Content on TikTok

The content shown to participants in the experimental group is widespread on TikTok, not limited to “pro-ana” communities. Trends like “clean” eating, detoxing, and limited-ingredient diets are often disguised as “wellness” and “self-care,” while actually promoting disordered eating under the guise of diet culture.

This type of content, along with fitspiration, frequently encourages and gamifies excessive exercise and disordered eating behaviors.

Social media wellness influencers play a significant role in normalizing disordered eating and fitspiration content.

Hashtags like #GymTok and #FoodTok enable any TikTok user to create and engage with content centered around daily eating routines, weight-loss transformations, and workout regimens.

Additionally, everyday users can share potentially harmful diet-related videos without facing the backlash that a celebrity or well-known influencer might encounter for promoting socially irresponsible content.

Our study focused only on the short-term effects of exposure to this type of content on TikTok. Longitudinal research is necessary to determine whether the negative impacts we observed persist over time.

Limited Control Over TikTok Content

TikTok users have limited control over the content they encounter. Since much of their time is spent on a personalized “For You” page curated by an algorithm, users can be exposed to disordered eating content without actively searching for or following it.

In our study, 64% of participants reported encountering disordered eating content on their For You page. This could include videos showing binge eating, laxative use, or excessive exercise.

Ironically, searching for body positivity content might actually increase a user’s exposure to disordered eating content.

The most crucial step TikTok users can take is to recognize that following or searching for content related to food, body image, or exercise may inadvertently expose them to distorted body ideals. Reducing time spent on TikTok can help limit this exposure, but our findings indicate that even less than ten minutes can have a negative impact.

Ultimately, ensuring online safety for young people requires proper social media regulation. Without this, teaching young women how to protect themselves on social media is akin to giving them an inflatable life jacket and then expecting them to swim indefinitely against a strong current.

If you need support, you can contact the Butterfly Foundation Helpline at 1800 33 4673 or chat with them online. For emergency crisis support, call Lifeline at 13 11 14.

Read the original article on: Science Alert

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