Weight loss ads have been popping up left and right on the internet hundreds of times a day due to it being a massive profit in the medicine market. People promoting new supplements or medications to keep the weight off, while showing just how much one can lose in a few months. According to Precedence Research, the weight loss industry as of 2025 has made 20.97 billion dollars and is estimated to increase to 22.74 billion in 2026.
Diet culture is a social belief system that idolizes thinness and weight over one’s health. The diet culture beliefs promote excessive and intense prolonged workouts, calorie restrictions, and deficits, as well as shame in what they eat, with labeling foods as “good” or “bad”. According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, eating in a large calorie deficit can heavily affect your health risks in the following years and even cause one to lose the ability to have a proper mental state.
As of 2025, the app TikTok has 82.2 million daily active users, with 55% of weekly users being females. 25% of those users are 18-24, while 14% of users are underage, stated to Industry Dive and BackLinko. In July 2025, TikTok created a ban on content promoting weight loss, such as hashtags like “#skinnytok” or supplements labeled to suppress appetite. Despite the “banning” of such content and promotions, loopholes have been made with examples of “SkinnyTok” turning into “SkinniTokk,” and ads such as “MyFitnessPal: Calorie Counter” are still promoted on the app when you go into TikTok’s search bar.
“You can always be thinner, look better,” has become a popularized audio on TikTok with 43.6 thousand videos using the audio. Many videos include people who show their before and after weight loss, with other users showing ways to lower your appetite with few calories. According to a Healthline article, eating too few calories can cause fatigue and nutrient deficits as well as reduce chances of fertility and lower your immunity.
Videos of body checks and harsh judgment roll in all, while teenage girls soak up each ounce of this content. People on TikTok began to normalize eating disorders as their captions quoted model Kate Moss, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”.
Kate Moss, the famous runway model known as “CocaineKate,” is heavily glorified for her “size 0 body” as women use her in comparison to their bodies. TikTok is facing condemnation for allowing Pro-Ana, a shortened name of Pro-Anorexia, to come onto its platform after the app Tumblr allowed it for so many years. Many users have expressed that their “ForYou” pages have shown videos motivating those into eating disorder behavior and even body shaming, stated to Toledo Center For Eating Disorders.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, eating disorders are behavioral issues linked to eating behaviors or disruptions due to distressing thoughts and emotions. Eating disorders diagnosed are bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating, though others, like pica, aren’t really linked to diet culture. Women between 12-35 are the ages of diagnosis for eating disorders. The messages of diet culture can lead to eating disorders, especially with how persuasive diet culture can be stated by Within Health’s article.
So what can this mean for young women and teen girls? Eating Disorder Help’s article makes statements that comment on the negative impacts on adolescent mental health and well-being. 11.1% of the diet culture content being submitted online is by teens, while only 1.4% of these videos are created by registered dietitians. Adolescents and young women are most vulnerable because, mentally, they are still developing and easily take in the majority’s perspective.
2021 was the peak for eating disorders, and 2025 seemingly stabilized, though it seems to rise once more. Diet culture has and will continue to negatively affect people who obtain the content and media. Social media platforms will continue to remove diet culture aspects, but that will not stop diet culture from continuing.
