I found myself on Skinny Tok and I feel like I'm back in early noughties diet culture again

We’re back - yet again. Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels apparently.

This weekend, I found myself on SkinnyTok.

I live with chronic pain, and I’m always looking for new exercises that I can try that might relieve it for just a few minutes.

While scrolling on TikTok, the algorithm happily moved me from “Pilates moves that are gentle on your back” to SkinnyTok. Videos on how to be skinny, whatever the cost.

It was honestly like being trapped in a nightmare, and is so, so incredibly dangerous.

Firstly, a lot of the talk around “being skinny” is competitive.

“Do you really want to be the fattest girl at the beach this summer?”

Hopefully someone else will be, right? And if you’re losing weight to compete with other “skinny” people, then you won’t ever be skinny enough. And that is a problem.

Secondly, and quickly, SkinnyTok attributes more worth to people who are skinny than those who aren’t. And I know society does this - classic skinny privilege...it’s a thing - but its something we should be fighting against, not buying into.

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My main issue though, is the return of shame as a tool to encourage weight loss.

I am in my mid 30s and was a teenager during the early noughties extreme diet culture. The side bar of shame or whatever it was called on that well-known website, the big red circles around love handles or slightly wiggly arms on the front page of magazines.

Women were too fat, too slutty, too messy and they had to be told this. Loudly and constantly. If you’re a young woman, you better not be like this. Don’t be sloppy - be thin.

Skip breakfast, skip lunch, don’t eat carbs, throw up after tea. Or you’ll be a fatty fatface. And there is nothing, nothing, in this world that is worse than being fat.

Now, 20 years later, we’re back, baby.

I know a lot of these influencers are saying “if you don’t like Skinny Tok, don’t be here - keep scrolling”. But it doesn’t really work like that.

I ended up being pushed these videos after looking for yoga and Pilates moves. And if you watch one video, you get pushed more, and then more. Down the rabbit hole you go, and for some, there’s no coming back.

It’s far too easy to find yourself watching content that is extremely damaging, not just for young minds - please, please check with your kids to make sure you know what they’re watching online - but for people who already struggle with eating disorders. Or have a difficult relationship with food.

This isn’t cutting out some processed food, doing a bit more walking, building good and healthy habits. This is perpetuating the idea that shame is inextricably linked to food and weight.

In case you need to hear it, we shouldn’t feel guilt when we eat, and we shouldn’t be cruel to ourselves. Or to others.

There’s so, so much more I could say on this, but I’ll stick with just this - noughties “diet culture” ruined a generation’s relationship with food for a long time, and some never recovered from it. Indeed, a lot didn’t survive it. Please let’s not do this again.