UK Edition
Watching TikTok videos promoting anorexia for less than 10 minutes is enough to cause harm, research suggests.
Australian researchers found young women who were shown videos that glamorised disordered eating behaviour and being extremely thin felt worse about their own appearance, with an almost immediate effect.
Experts said the app’s algorithm, which keeps feeding users content based on what they have previously watched, may carry particular risks for those vulnerable to eating disorders.
Researchers called for controls to be put in place on the platform to stop “pro-anorexia” content circulating, in order to reduce the risk of harm.
The study, by Charles Sturt University in Australia, surveyed 273 women aged 18 to 28 about their body image, and attitudes towards beauty standards and food.
Some were spending up to two hours a day watching Tiktok videos.
About half were shown videos about disordered eating, such as young women restricting food intake and sharing weight loss tips, as well as videos of slim women showing off cinched waists and content about working out and juice cleanses.
The remainder of the group were shown videos about nature, cooking, comedy and animals.
After watching seven to eight minutes of videos, the two groups were then asked to fill out the surveys on body image and beauty standards again.
The study, published in the journal Plos One, found that pro-anorexia content “significantly decreased” the first group’s body image satisfaction and increased their internalisation of appearance ideals.
The research did not examine changes in eating habits.
‘Stringent controls’
The researchers said: “Our study showed that less than 10 minutes of exposure to implicit and explicit pro-anorexia TikTok content had immediate negative consequences for body image states and internalisation of appearance ideals, suggesting psychological harm can occur for young female TikTok users even when explicit pro-anorexia content is not sought out and when TikTok use is of a short duration.
“The findings of this study suggest cultural and organisation change is needed.
“There is a need for more stringent controls and regulations from TikTok in relation to pro-anorexia content as well as more subtle forms of disordered eating and body-related content.”
Prohibiting or restricting these videos could reduce the risk of eating orders developing among users, the study suggests.
Last year, TikTok – which has a minimum age of 13 – introduced a 60-minute daily screen time limit for users who are aged under 18.
If young people hit the limit, they have to enter a passcode to continue to use the service that day. Those who opt out of the control and use the app for more than 100 minutes a day receive a prompt urging them to set up screen time limits.
Tom Quinn, director of external affairs at the UK’s eating disorder charity Beat, said: “Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses, and whilst we don’t know the exact causes, it is concerning that viewing so-called ‘pro-anorexia’ content can be a contributing factor.
“Unfortunately there is a great deal of harmful content shared on social media platforms, most often circulated by those who are unwell themselves.
“These platforms have a responsibility to their most vulnerable users and should take steps to protect them from harm wherever possible, including ensuring that pro-eating disorder content isn’t promoted in their algorithms, preventing irresponsible content from being uploaded to begin with, and making it easier for users to report and block any videos they might come across.
“We’d urge anyone who is struggling with their social media usage to take a step away, and instead focus on positive sources which promote recovery such as Beat.”
TikTok said its community guidelines did not allow “showing or promoting disordered eating and dangerous weight loss behaviours”, or “facilitating the trade or marketing of weight loss or muscle gain products”.