“SkinnyTok” is a popular hashtag on ‘ForYou’ pages on TikTok, promoting behaviours and mindsets related to weight loss and body image.

The trend has garnered criticism because of its promotion and normalisation of extreme eating habits, and encouragement of a mindset that promotes being underweight.

New data by Deloitte Access Economics reports 27 per cent of eating disorder cases in Australia are among those aged 10-19, nearly double the 2012 statistic.

Principal psychologist at Immersive Psychology Group Leah Dudley says these TikToks can encourage disordered eating or aiming to live in a skinnier body.

“Social media use at such a young age plants that seed that starts to say its good to be thin, its better to be thin, that stigmatisation and messaging can really impact something thats already there,” she says.

“TikTok and these social media platforms are trying to take conscious steps to reduce words such as ‘thinspo’ but there are so many work arounds which makes it pervasive and dangerous.

“My advice would be understanding how TikTok has a really sensitive algorithm and if you slow down your scrolling it will notice and start sending more of that content. It’s important to be really conscious of what you’re engaging with on TikTok and knowing how it impacts your wellbeing and self worth.”

Mia Findlay is the founder of Beyond Body Coaching, and an eating disorder recovery coach. She says she got into coaching because it was evident to her that we didn’t only need a shift in advocacy areas but also in the professional space.

“What it does is it normalises the idea that our worth and safety are very much attached to our body,” she says.

“Very often we put eating disorders and diet culture in separate categories where actually they all belong on a spectrum with each other. They are all different shades of suffering.

“It is quite disheartening to see this regression back into these beliefs and to see it so overtly stated it was a similar message to the early 2000s. Social media absolutely has a lot to answer for because they not only push these posts but make these filters available.

“In my comments a lot of the discourse has been that theres nothing wrong with these trends and filters because everyone just knows and accepts that being in a larger body is unhealthy, which really reflects peoples very lacking understanding of the complexity of how bodies interact with health.”

Her advice for young women being exposed to this content is to be careful with algorithms.

“Treat our social media as if we are the editor of our own magazine. What would you want to see in that magazine? That’s what you need to allow and accept onto your feed and not allow or accept things that are conducive to what you would want to see and interact with,” she says.

If you or anybody you know is struggling with disordered eating, visit https://butterfly.org.au/get-support/helpline/ or call 1800 ED HOPE.