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Health Line
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Health Line
What Is ‘Skinny Tok?' Experts Debunk the Harmful TikTok Trend for Weight Loss
' Skinny Tok,' an extreme form of dieting that equates thinness with health, continues to trend on TikTok. Experts warn that the trend perpetuates negative body image and toxic diet culture. Extreme calorie restriction has mental and physical consequences. There are many sustainable, evidence-based ways to achieve a healthy weight. A harmful and misleading body image trend continues to surface on TikTok. So-called 'Skinny Tok' is a controversial corner of the social media platform where proponents tout extreme thinness under the guise of wellness and lifestyle advice. Leading the Skinny Tok movement is Gen Z influencer Liv Schmidt, who rose to internet fame by sharing what she referred to as 'skinny girl hacks.' Her content, which included low calorie 'What I Eat in a Day' videos, sparked widespread concern about its potential to normalize disordered eating. After being banned from TikTok in 2024 for violating the platform's community guidelines, Schmidt resurfaced with a new username. Skinny Tok content continues to gain traction. There are currently over 74,000 videos shared under the #skinnytok hashtag, many of which share extreme calorie deficits and regular body checks, where users document their shrinking bodies. Skinny Tok: A dangerous way to lose weight Registered dietitian Emily Van Eck, described the trend as a 'dangerous' and 'extreme' take on weight loss and health. 'Glorifying thinness as a marker of morality, health, or discipline is harmful to physical, emotional, and mental health,' she told Healthline. 'Dieting is a major risk factor for eating disorders, and the younger someone starts, the higher their risk. Because these videos often feature teenagers and young adults, they're especially concerning.' Van Eck noted the vilifying of essential macronutrients (in particular carbohydrates and fats) as another red flag. 'Our bodies need these nutrients,' she said. Lindsie Meek, founder of HumanMend, an eating disorder and anxiety psychotherapy practice in New York City, said the trend perpetuates harmful diet culture, celebrates extreme thinness, and promotes unrealistic body standards. 'The 'What I eat in a day' content is particularly harmful because it suggests all bodies have the same nutritional needs,' she told Healthline. 'These posts don't take into consideration individual body factors, such as genetics and health needs.' Risks of extreme calorie restriction Some influencers promoting this trend share very low calorie diets. Both experts agreed that extreme calorie restriction has mental and physical consequences. 'On 800 calories per day, it's virtually impossible to meet your body's nutrient needs,' Van Eck said. 'Deficiencies in iron, B12, and calcium are common, which can lead to fatigue, low mood, poor sleep, and muscle loss. Over time, undernourishment can cause immune dysfunction, hypothalamic amenorrhea (which causes infertility), and bone loss,' she noted. From a mental health perspective, Meek said dieting to the extreme could contribute to 'exaggerated or limited mood fluctuations and obsessive thoughts about food and body image.' Many of these videos frame weight loss and extreme thinness as the ultimate sign of health, a narrative that is dangerous and misleading. 'Weight is not a reliable indicator of health status,' said Meek. 'Health is multifaceted and cannot be determined by appearance alone. 'People in thin bodies may or may not be healthy, just as people in larger bodies may or may not be healthy,' she continued. Meek noted that true health isn't a body size; it encompasses physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being. Healthy weight loss vs. disordered eating Not all weight loss is bad. There are healthy, sustainable ways to reach a healthy weight, but with so much conflicting advice online, it can be difficult to know what's helpful and what's extreme. Van Eck agreed. 'The line between intentional weight loss and disordered eating can be blurry, especially online, where extreme behaviors are often framed as wellness and get rewarded with massive attention due to their polarizing nature,' she pointed out. For Van Eck, health-supportive behavior change feels like part of a broader self-care routine. 'It's flexible and rooted in nourishment, not fear or punishment,' she said. Disordered eating on the other hand, often shows up as rigid food rules, food guilt, and obsessive control. 'If someone feels anxious deviating from a plan, skips meals to earn food, or thinks about food and their body constantly, that's disordered, even if it's normalized online,' Van Eck said. If in doubt, Meek recommended assessing how the behaviors impact your daily life. 'If weight loss is the goal, it's important to consistently assess flexibility and anxiety levels when plans change, as disordered patterns are often rigid and distressing,' she said. 'Disordered eating also typically interferes with relationships, work, and life enjoyment, whereas balanced approaches enhance overall well-being.' Achieving a healthy weight Despite recent strides made by the body positivity movement, mainstream culture continues to conflate thinness with health. According to Van Eck, part of the issue may be tied to misconceptions about healthy body weight. 'Healthy weight is a term I often find problematic. The metrics we use, like BMI, are deeply flawed and don't account for natural, individual variation,' Van Eck said. 'If we define it more functionally, a healthy weight is the range your body naturally lands when you're eating enough, moving in ways that feel good, and not caught in the restrict-obsess-repeat cycle.' There are many sustainable, evidence-based ways to get into this healthy zone. 'If someone wants to support their health long term, the most sustainable approach is to focus on behavior, not the weight. 'That includes eating regular, balanced meals with enough energy, fiber, protein, and fat to support fullness and satisfaction,' she said. It also means honoring hunger cues, finding enjoyable movement, and addressing sleep, stress, and emotional health. Another way to support yourself is to ditch the idea that foods are inherently good or bad. 'Virtually everyone in our culture has been influenced to some extent by toxic diet culture. Healing involves rejecting food morality by challenging the idea that certain foods are good or bad,' said Meek. Diet trends like Skinny Tok can reinforce dangerous ideas around weight loss and health, but true wellness is multi-dimensional. 'Equating thinness with health ignores human complexity and reinforces weight stigma,' Van Eck said. manage stress, sleep, and connect with others, than it is in a size.'
CNN
16-05-2025
- Health
- CNN
Like a monster in your head: What anorexia survivors want you to know about #SkinnyTok
EDITOR'S NOTE: Oona Hanson is a writer, educator and parent coach who specializes in helping families navigate diet culture and eating disorders. While the internet's darkest corners have always harbored harmful ideas, a new TikTok trend takes hazardous pro-eating disorder content out of the shadows and into the view of millions of people. SkinnyTok, the viral weight-loss hashtag on TikTok, goes beyond typical fitness and nutrition advice and instead recommends dangerous levels of restriction with a side of verbal abuse. Those in hard-fought recovery from anorexia have raised concerns that this craze poses a serious health risk, particularly for young women, who are the main target of these weight-loss messages. Often referred to as 'thinspo' or 'pro-ana,' online content encouraging eating disorder behaviors is nothing new, but TikTok's video format and algorithm now spread this type of content far and wide rather than it staying confined to a smaller community of users . TikTok declined to respond to my questions directly, but a spokesperson shared some of the steps they say the company takes, such as interrupting repetitive content and directing users to mental health resources, including organizations that specialize in eating disorder recovery. Those users who want to limit weight-loss content can filter out particular words and hashtags. Despite TikTok's policy that explicitly prohibits 'showing or promoting disordered eating and dangerous weight loss behaviors,' I still find that these shocking videos continue to proliferate on the platform. Prior pro-eating disorder content on sites like Tumblr or X 'were more niche in the sense that they were more directed toward people who had eating disorders,' said Mallary Tenore Tarpley, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin, whose first book, 'Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery,' will be released in August. Rather than something an already struggling person might seek out to reinforce their mental illness, SkinnyTok is out in the open and even presented as healthy. Tarpley worries the average viewer is unlikely to recognize how extreme and dangerous these messages are. 'Because they are framed as just this sort of wellness movement or healthy eating, they become more mainstream, and therefore people don't necessarily see the toxicity in them,' she said. When Los Angeles-based licensed clinical social worker Shira Rosenbluth first came across this kind of content, she was surprised at the resurgence of these dangerous messages. 'We're still doing this twentysomething years later?' Rosenbluth asked. 'We're still in exactly the same place where we're glorifying not just fitness, we're glorifying eating disorders and disordered eating? You see them say it's not about being skinny, it's just about being healthy. And it's like, OK, but why is it called SkinnyTok?' Some of the viral content is so outrageous, Rosenbluth even wondered if it's simply 'rage-bait,' an attempt to get reactions and attention simply by being so offensive. Even if influencers are posting this shocking content primarily to drive engagement, the primary audience — teen girls and young women — are still being put in harm's way. While some defenders of this content argue it's not meant to be taken seriously, Tarpley finds the trending motifs often describe specific anorexia symptoms. 'Sometimes the advice given may seem like it's supposed to be humorous, but in fact a lot of people struggling with eating disorders actually engage in those very same behaviors, and it is far from funny.' She shared how one popular SkinnyTok trend was eerily similar to something she experienced while in the throes of anorexia as a child. 'I saw one video where someone said, 'If you're sleeping and wake in the middle of the night hungry, just chew on your pillow,'' she said. 'I remember doing something similar when I was younger.' The kinds of weight-loss tips popular on the platform 'could become a guidebook for people with eating disorders or for people who are flirting with dieting and are predisposed to developing an eating disorder,' Tarpley added. 'It becomes this very slippery slope where you hear these ideas that are expressed in jest, or you hear the shaming and then you begin to really believe that it's true.' Demeaning messages about people's eating and bodies are popular on SkinnyTok, and Rosenbluth understands why people might be attracted to such negativity. 'It's almost like an abuse victim who thinks that's what they deserve,' said Rosenbluth, who is in recovery from anorexia. 'I'm especially thinking about like a larger teenager who has been taught that their body is bad and their body is wrong, and that they need to do everything they can to change their body. They think they deserve to be talked to like that.' Speaking from her clients' experiences and her own, Rosenbluth recognized the way these influencers' cruel messages often directly echo the internal torment of people with eating disorders. 'The bully voice sounds similar to the eating disorder voice,' she said. 'Someone in any size body with an eating disorder is talking to themselves like that internally. People describe it as this monster that's in their head, kind of screaming at them all the time.' While Rosenbluth noted that she and her patients used to feel that 'nobody could be meaner than this monster, (it's possible that) the TikTok bullies are equal. This constant voice, telling them that they are nothing, that they're garbage, that they're not worthy, that they shouldn't be seen, that they shouldn't be heard, that they need to be thin.' Rosenbluth finds one of the popular taglines — 'You don't need a treat. You're not a dog' — particularly disturbing because of its implication that satisfying basic hunger and need for pleasure makes you less than human. 'It's scary that we're saying the human right of eating and enjoying food is something that is so wildly wrong when it's actually human, a part of life,' she said. These dehumanizing messages are a recipe for stress and suffering, but they're sold to viewers as 'tough love' or even self-care. Particularly for impressionable young people, these influencers promote 'this belief that we need to be thin in order to be beautiful and accepted and loved,' added Tarpley. People swept up in following these 'thinfluencers' aren't usually aware of the serious risks that come with adopting their rigid dietary advice. 'What's really scary to me is that teenagers and young adults, if they start restricting, they can do permanent damage. We're talking about permanent bone loss and osteoporosis later on in life,' Rosenbluth said. 'Restriction can impact the entire body.' The conflation of thinness with health can make it hard for parents to notice if their teen is absorbing this dangerous content. Rosenbluth worries especially about adolescents and knows they need support to set limits on how much time they spend on social media. 'People can get sucked in for hours on end, and no teenager needs that.' The sheer volume of exposure to this harmful content concerns Tarpley, too. 'The algorithms are designed in such a way that if you begin to kind of flirt with some of this content, you're going to start seeing it more and more in your feed,' she said. 'It becomes very hard then to escape that. And that can lead people down these rabbit holes that can be really dark and really hard to get out of.' Parents who observe their child restricting food or exercising excessively shouldn't dismiss the behaviors as just a fad diet or an attempt to 'be healthy' and get in shape. 'There's this tendency to think that eating disorders are just some sort of passing phase or something that can be quickly overcome, and I will say, eating disorders can ruin lives. They can take lives,' Tarpley warned. Most parents don't know that trouble can start after exposure to content far less extreme than what's on SkinnyTok. Throughout her career, Rosenbluth has worked with countless people 'who started out on these innocent diets or just wanting to lose a few pounds, and now they're completely consumed.' It's easy for an eating disorder to start but incredibly hard to end it. 'That period of developing an eating disorder can be quite quick, but it can take years, and in some cases a lifetime, for people to actually recover,' Tarpley noted. Tarpley wishes adults and teens understood the serious risks of engaging with this kind of content: 'People think, well, it's just social media. There's no way I could develop an eating disorder just because of some videos I see. But in talking with lots of people with all different types of eating disorders, I recognize that's very much something that could happen. So, I think the more we can talk about this reality, the better.' Note: If you or someone you know may be struggling with an eating disorder, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders provides resources and referrals.
CNN
16-05-2025
- Health
- CNN
Like a monster in your head: What anorexia survivors want you to know about #SkinnyTok
EDITOR'S NOTE: Oona Hanson is a writer, educator and parent coach who specializes in helping families navigate diet culture and eating disorders. While the internet's darkest corners have always harbored harmful ideas, a new TikTok trend takes hazardous pro-eating disorder content out of the shadows and into the view of millions of people. SkinnyTok, the viral weight-loss hashtag on TikTok, goes beyond typical fitness and nutrition advice and instead recommends dangerous levels of restriction with a side of verbal abuse. Those in hard-fought recovery from anorexia have raised concerns that this craze poses a serious health risk, particularly for young women, who are the main target of these weight-loss messages. Often referred to as 'thinspo' or 'pro-ana,' online content encouraging eating disorder behaviors is nothing new, but TikTok's video format and algorithm now spread this type of content far and wide rather than it staying confined to a smaller community of users . TikTok declined to respond to my questions directly, but a spokesperson shared some of the steps they say the company takes, such as interrupting repetitive content and directing users to mental health resources, including organizations that specialize in eating disorder recovery. Those users who want to limit weight-loss content can filter out particular words and hashtags. Despite TikTok's policy that explicitly prohibits 'showing or promoting disordered eating and dangerous weight loss behaviors,' I still find that these shocking videos continue to proliferate on the platform. Prior pro-eating disorder content on sites like Tumblr or X 'were more niche in the sense that they were more directed toward people who had eating disorders,' said Mallary Tenore Tarpley, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin, whose first book, 'Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery,' will be released in August. Rather than something an already struggling person might seek out to reinforce their mental illness, SkinnyTok is out in the open and even presented as healthy. Tarpley worries the average viewer is unlikely to recognize how extreme and dangerous these messages are. 'Because they are framed as just this sort of wellness movement or healthy eating, they become more mainstream, and therefore people don't necessarily see the toxicity in them,' she said. When Los Angeles-based licensed clinical social worker Shira Rosenbluth first came across this kind of content, she was surprised at the resurgence of these dangerous messages. 'We're still doing this twentysomething years later?' Rosenbluth asked. 'We're still in exactly the same place where we're glorifying not just fitness, we're glorifying eating disorders and disordered eating? You see them say it's not about being skinny, it's just about being healthy. And it's like, OK, but why is it called SkinnyTok?' Some of the viral content is so outrageous, Rosenbluth even wondered if it's simply 'rage-bait,' an attempt to get reactions and attention simply by being so offensive. Even if influencers are posting this shocking content primarily to drive engagement, the primary audience — teen girls and young women — are still being put in harm's way. While some defenders of this content argue it's not meant to be taken seriously, Tarpley finds the trending motifs often describe specific anorexia symptoms. 'Sometimes the advice given may seem like it's supposed to be humorous, but in fact a lot of people struggling with eating disorders actually engage in those very same behaviors, and it is far from funny.' She shared how one popular SkinnyTok trend was eerily similar to something she experienced while in the throes of anorexia as a child. 'I saw one video where someone said, 'If you're sleeping and wake in the middle of the night hungry, just chew on your pillow,'' she said. 'I remember doing something similar when I was younger.' The kinds of weight-loss tips popular on the platform 'could become a guidebook for people with eating disorders or for people who are flirting with dieting and are predisposed to developing an eating disorder,' Tarpley added. 'It becomes this very slippery slope where you hear these ideas that are expressed in jest, or you hear the shaming and then you begin to really believe that it's true.' Demeaning messages about people's eating and bodies are popular on SkinnyTok, and Rosenbluth understands why people might be attracted to such negativity. 'It's almost like an abuse victim who thinks that's what they deserve,' said Rosenbluth, who is in recovery from anorexia. 'I'm especially thinking about like a larger teenager who has been taught that their body is bad and their body is wrong, and that they need to do everything they can to change their body. They think they deserve to be talked to like that.' Speaking from her clients' experiences and her own, Rosenbluth recognized the way these influencers' cruel messages often directly echo the internal torment of people with eating disorders. 'The bully voice sounds similar to the eating disorder voice,' she said. 'Someone in any size body with an eating disorder is talking to themselves like that internally. People describe it as this monster that's in their head, kind of screaming at them all the time.' While Rosenbluth noted that she and her patients used to feel that 'nobody could be meaner than this monster, (it's possible that) the TikTok bullies are equal. This constant voice, telling them that they are nothing, that they're garbage, that they're not worthy, that they shouldn't be seen, that they shouldn't be heard, that they need to be thin.' Rosenbluth finds one of the popular taglines — 'You don't need a treat. You're not a dog' — particularly disturbing because of its implication that satisfying basic hunger and need for pleasure makes you less than human. 'It's scary that we're saying the human right of eating and enjoying food is something that is so wildly wrong when it's actually human, a part of life,' she said. These dehumanizing messages are a recipe for stress and suffering, but they're sold to viewers as 'tough love' or even self-care. Particularly for impressionable young people, these influencers promote 'this belief that we need to be thin in order to be beautiful and accepted and loved,' added Tarpley. People swept up in following these 'thinfluencers' aren't usually aware of the serious risks that come with adopting their rigid dietary advice. 'What's really scary to me is that teenagers and young adults, if they start restricting, they can do permanent damage. We're talking about permanent bone loss and osteoporosis later on in life,' Rosenbluth said. 'Restriction can impact the entire body.' The conflation of thinness with health can make it hard for parents to notice if their teen is absorbing this dangerous content. Rosenbluth worries especially about adolescents and knows they need support to set limits on how much time they spend on social media. 'People can get sucked in for hours on end, and no teenager needs that.' The sheer volume of exposure to this harmful content concerns Tarpley, too. 'The algorithms are designed in such a way that if you begin to kind of flirt with some of this content, you're going to start seeing it more and more in your feed,' she said. 'It becomes very hard then to escape that. And that can lead people down these rabbit holes that can be really dark and really hard to get out of.' Parents who observe their child restricting food or exercising excessively shouldn't dismiss the behaviors as just a fad diet or an attempt to 'be healthy' and get in shape. 'There's this tendency to think that eating disorders are just some sort of passing phase or something that can be quickly overcome, and I will say, eating disorders can ruin lives. They can take lives,' Tarpley warned. Most parents don't know that trouble can start after exposure to content far less extreme than what's on SkinnyTok. Throughout her career, Rosenbluth has worked with countless people 'who started out on these innocent diets or just wanting to lose a few pounds, and now they're completely consumed.' It's easy for an eating disorder to start but incredibly hard to end it. 'That period of developing an eating disorder can be quite quick, but it can take years, and in some cases a lifetime, for people to actually recover,' Tarpley noted. Tarpley wishes adults and teens understood the serious risks of engaging with this kind of content: 'People think, well, it's just social media. There's no way I could develop an eating disorder just because of some videos I see. But in talking with lots of people with all different types of eating disorders, I recognize that's very much something that could happen. So, I think the more we can talk about this reality, the better.' Note: If you or someone you know may be struggling with an eating disorder, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders provides resources and referrals.
The Sun
15-05-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Mum didn't call me fat, but watching her on WeightWatchers every day made me anorexic – here's how to break toxic cycle
AS I tucked into a big plate of spaghetti Bolognese, I watched my mum Yvonne take her defrosted ready meal over to the microwave. Our freezer was packed with little purple boxes of WeightWatchers dinners that looked and smelt horrible compared to the healthy homecooked dinners Mum prepared for the rest of the family. 6 6 6 Perpetually on a diet, she never ate normally – but sadly that was normal in our house. It was only many years later that I realised how sad it was that she weighed out every ingredient she ate for decades. Apart from a brief flirtation with the Atkins diet, Mum was pretty loyal to WeightWatchers, diligently keeping track of her points and attending weekly weigh-ins. Her calorie-controlled meals were eaten separately from me, my brother and father, with family dinners incredibly rare. Studies have found that children whose parents diet, or stress about their weight, have a higher risk of developing weight-related issues themselves. And kids whose parents suffer from disordered eating are, in turn, more likely to develop an eating disorder. Mum had worked as an air hostess before having children, a career that came with an expectation of a certain physique in the 1980s and 1990s. Years later, I'd learn that my grandmother had warned her against eating butter when she was just eight, in case she got fat. The lesson she'd been taught in childhood was that it didn't matter what you were as a woman, as long as you were slim. Mum never intended to pass the same philosophy down to me, but actions speak louder than words. A psychologist's ultimate guide to eating disorders - how parents can spot the subtle signs & what they can do to help My young mind unconsciously noted how adult women ate differently to children and men, in order to keep their thighs and tummy as small as possible. Looking back, it's heartbreaking how unremarkable it all seemed. There was a phase when she was constantly nibbling on raw carrot sticks, like a rabbit, because they were 'allowed' in unlimited quantities. But after a year, her hands and feet turned yellowy-orange, like she was jaundiced, and my dad sent her to the doctor. It turned out the beta-carotene in the vast quantity of her veggie snacks had made her skin change colour – a condition called carotenemia. She stopped eating them, but didn't ditch her diet. There was the harmful language used among her friends, too, which is still so common. I had quietly absorbed the language and learnings of diet culture, forming my own unhealthy habits Certain foods would be 'naughty' and more often than not, Mum would turn down a piece of cake or another 'treat', saying: 'I'm going to be good today.' Scales were a permanent fixture in our bathroom – along with a pad of paper where Mum, who was a healthy size 10-12 at the time, religiously noted down the stones and pounds they registered daily. By the time I was 12, I was following her lead and obsessively checking the vital statistics of my rapidly changing body. I had quietly absorbed the language and learnings of diet culture, forming my own unhealthy habits. 'Stuck in cycle' To me, it was an inevitable part of being female. I was sucked into a cycle of disordered eating throughout my teens, experiencing anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating. There were times when I was so hungry at school, I could just about muster the energy to walk from class to class, never mind concentrate on lessons. My friends would call me weird for only eating cucumber for lunch and pushing a jacket potato around my plate, but no one delved any deeper. My skinny legs were put down to a growth spurt. I was permanently cold and incredibly angry too, my changing hormones made worse from the lack of nutrients. But it wasn't until I was 18 that I got professional help and my GP referred me to an eating disorders specialist. 6 I think it took Mum time to notice how bad it was because being weird around food was her life. Only when the binge eating really kicked in, after I started college, did my family realise they needed to intervene – because I'd put on 5st in about two years. It says a lot about our society and how it views women's bodies that help only came when I was becoming obese, not starving myself thin. I saw a specialist into my early twenties and continue to work hard at prizing good health above thinness. I'd scared myself by having constant kidney pain when I was binge-eating, realising that it could lead to long-term harm. 6 Toxic culture Unfortunately, I may always have struggles with food, but I put effort into understanding it. For the last five years, I've been a full-time content creator, using my Instagram account to share honestly and positively about body image and eating disorders. Mum, now 65, has come a long way too. Today we can sit down to eat together, enjoying a roast or a takeaway. But years of controlling her diet mean she still eats off a child's plate and her appetite is small. Reflecting on my childhood, I can see it wasn't my mum's fault. It was the system she grew up in. Diet culture will change over time, but so-called wellness companies will continue trying to make a profit out of insecurities they help to create. We need to try and break the cycle of this toxic culture. Look at the rise of weight loss jabs. Manufacturers claim these medications help users' health by fighting obesity, but what's not being helped is their mind. How will the kids of today be affected by seeing their Ozempic -taking mums nibble on tiny portions while they eat a full dinner? Or by spotting those injections lurking at the back of the fridge? It's scary and I'm living proof it will leave an impression. That's why I made a video for Instagram recently, with my mum's blessing, talking about the impact of being raised by a WeightWatchers mum. I don't feel angry at the company – it was a product of the time – but I do feel angry towards celebrities who take the money of these sorts of brands and endorse them. How will the kids of today be affected by seeing their Ozempic-taking mums nibble on tiny portions while they eat a full dinner? I was glad to hear they filed for bankruptcy recently, with the rise of weight-loss jabs cited as one of the causes for their demise. But others will step into the void. After posting the video, I had hundreds of comments. Many were heartbreaking, but it confirmed that our situation is not unique. Now we need to break the cycle for good and free the next generation from this toxic obsession with being thin. Nelly's mum Yvonne says: 'Seeing Nelly's struggles has been really hard and I have related to everything she has ever posted about body image and food. 'Her video about our story was the truth and she has a way of wording things that is so powerful. I wanted her to share it to help others. 'I don't think I'll ever be able to let go of the calorie-counting or dieting completely. 'My habits are so deeply ingrained, but I am doing my best to unlearn things I have been taught since I was a child.'
Times
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Emily English: SkinnyTok takes us back to Noughties era of diets
Emily English, the nutritionist and author who found fame on social media during the pandemic, has spoken out against the rise of 'SkinnyTok', describing it as a return to the ultra-restrictive diet culture of the Noughties. The 29-year-old Londoner, who is better known to her 1.8 million Instagram followers as @emthenutritionist, has become an internet sensation among women in their late twenties and thirties. Her videos of recipes-for-two — featuring dishes such as katsu curry, butterbean hummus, healthy carbonara and a spicy tuna melt — have also attracted a celebrity following from the likes of Millie Mackintosh, Perrie Edwards and Michelle Keegan. In an interview with The Sunday Times, English, who is in Dublin this weekend to host a cooking demonstration at WellFest, discussed the
