What you need to know about TikTok’s new rules on extreme weight-loss content

The video app has updated its guidelines, but what does this mean for social media creators and users?

TikTok says it is strengthening its policies to address content related to extreme weight loss, the promotion of idealised body types and the trade of harmful weight management products. Photo: Getty

Saoirse Hanley

There was a time that social media was something of a wild west when it came to weight-loss content. So popular were damaging ‘pro-anorexia’ posts on Tumblr in the 2010s that the website officially implemented a policy to prohibit blogs that were seen to glorify or promote disordered eating in 2012.

The conversation around bodies and weight loss has changed since. The body positivity movement has come and gone, with body neutrality as the new goal. In 2020, The Guardian declared “Body positivity has had its day,” and Taylor Swift, Lizzo and Lena Dunham have all opened up about their preference of acceptance over overt positivity.