TikTok’s Problematic Wellness Culture
According to Nuffield Trust figures, the number of children and young people receiving timely treatment for eating disorders has worsened since the pandemic, as mental health services have been wounded by capacity issues and depleted through underfunding. ‘Social isolation, loss of routine, and difficulties accessing face-to-face clinical appointments’, have all been noted as causes in increasing numbers of eating disorder sufferers and the subsequent struggle of the NHS to combat the growing issue. The young people suffering however, cite social media platform TikTok, to publications such as The Guardian and The Independent, as the root of their worsening mental health.
Eve Sankar noted in The Independent that she found herself sucked into TikTok’s anorexia community through following ‘mid-size’ fashion hashtags on TikTok. Eve noted that these ‘mid-size’ fashion videos began to bring up ‘wellness’ content, which quickly turned into ‘pro-anorexia’ content. Many like Eve, have suffered at the hands of various hashtags, the most pervasive of which seem to be ‘#IntuitiveEating’ and its usual accompaniment ‘#WIEIAD’ (What I Eat in a Day). #IntuitiveEating, at its core value relates to those wanting to establish a healthier relationship with food by eating when you’re hungry, and practicing knowing your fullness queues, as well as when you need to eat more. Largely intuitive eating focuses on self-awareness, gratitude and listening to your body, the popularity of #intuitiveeating however, is not reflective of the health technique’s core ethos.
A quick search of #IntuitiveEating on TikTok, reveals some of the hashtag’s videos are positive reflections of TikTok’s anti-diet culture community, who work to unpack the positives and the negatives of the app’s ‘wellness’ spaces. However, a scroll down tells us exactly why these ‘intuitive’ creators, such as @adamwrightfitness and @abbeyskitchen exist. Pictured below, are two creators sharing #intuitiveeating content, the first, posts a seemingly harmless video if you happen to miss the first few seconds, which are her body checking.
The second, shares triggering before and afters, hidden behind a body positive caption. Further down the search, @abbeyskitchen appears, duetting another user’s video which claims #intuitiveeating. This video, begins with a body check, and also notes counting macros, which Abbey points out, is not necessarily intuitive. Abbey notes in the video, that on TikTok ‘intuitive eating language gets mis-interpreted’ and the danger of this is that these #intuitiveeating videos appear on the For You Pages’ of people who are struggling with food and body image. TikTok’s algorithm is notoriously sensitive, and the effects of its sensitivity can be completely detrimental to a young person’s mental and physical health.
In a large amount of these #intuitiveeating videos, #wieiaid is tagged too. #Wieiaid dominates TikTok’s ‘health and wellness’ content. Much like #intuitiveeating, most of the content fosters unhealthy comparison, and nurtures the idea that eating in a certain way means you will look a certain way. It’s habit for misinformation however is perhaps its most dangerous tenet. Many of those who post videos under #wieiad, use food scientist titles unprotected in the UK such as ‘nutritionist’ to put forward their ideas about how to be ‘healthy’, which in many of these creators’ minds is synonymous with thinness. While some of these creators are well-informed, others have been misled and end up spouting diet culture’s lies, in an altogether more believable form due to their titling. Therefore, by liking a video with a #intuitiveeating claim accompanied by #wieiaid, a user may end up with not only imprecise claims of intuitive eating on their For You Page, but also potentially dangerous inaccurate nutritional information, and videos which tie food to physical appearance, under the guise of ‘wellness’ and #intuitiveeating.
Eating disorders are said to exist between people as societal preoccupations with thinness form a rhetoric that skinny = happy, and skinny = in control of your life’s trajectory. When in fact, the very diet culture which creates this rhetoric keeps people trapped (i.e. out of control) in these cycles. TikTok aids this cycle by bringing users videos which have the ability to either worsen a person’s existing eating disorder, or, foster one in the first place. #IntuitiveEating, has become a space where those trying to recover find themselves in so-called ‘wellness’ communities, which normalise eating disorder behaviours, foster comparison and tie food consumption to body image. For non-sufferers, who due to fatphobia are easily prone to developing negative relationships with food, TikTok can become their infection site, their motivation to stay sick, and their community of fellow sufferers. According to research published by The New York Times, TikTok starts recommending users content tied to eating disorders within 30 minutes of joining the app. The app responded to this claim by arguing it is not representative of actual users, but as many young people have cited, this experience is the experience of many, and the app is simply not doing enough to combat this.
