[Un article de The Conversation écrit par Pascale Ezan – professeur des universités – comportements de consommation – alimentation – réseaux sociaux, Université Le Havre Normandie – Emilie Hoëllard – Maître de conférences en sciences de gestion, Université Le Havre Normandie]
Today, these paper supports lose ground among young girls, for the benefit of social networks like Tiktok, a platform at the heart of their digital culture. The imaginary of the perfect body diffuses faster, stronger, and more insidiously.
Among the trends encouraging thinness on this social network, #Skinnytok appears to be one of the most disturbing hashtags with 58.2 k of publications in April 2025.
Social pressure of shock discourse
Using short videos combining catchy music, attractive filters and stories of physical transformation (the famous before/after), young women are addressed to their pairs to encourage them to eat less, or even to collapse.
Centered on heuristics of representativeness, these young women stage their bodies as proof of the relevance of the advice they advance. They thus emphasize that their experience is an example to follow: “I hardly eat anymore. »»
On the surface, their nutritional recommendations are based on the health messages to which they have been exposed since their childhood: eating healthy, playing sports … But in reality, their speeches advocate dangerously restrictive regimes, routines aimed at shaping ultramance bodies. Based on belief, which must be avoided to eat to lose weight, intermittent fasting advice, tips for ignoring hunger are conveyed: “I was only eating from 4 pm + Pilates next door. »»
Here, no staging of recipes or good deals to eat better as in most content ” healthy “On Instagram, but shocking sentences easily memorizable to convey social pressure:” If it is leaner than you, it is that it is stronger than you “; “Do not reward yourself with food, you're not a dog!” »; “You are not hungry, it's just that you are bored”; “If your belly gurgling is that he applauds you.” »»
Nor is there in the messages stamped #skinnytok of benevolent and empathetic, consolidating self -esteem.
On the contrary, speaking are aggressive and thought as an effective lever for behavioral change. The principle is to arouse negative emotions based on guilt with, as a source of motivation, the promise to live a beautiful summer: “You don't want to play sports, ok, so prepare to be bad in your skin this summer. »»
Far from provoking rejection on the social network, these messages are discussed, shared, even supplemented by testimonies from subscribers. Some messages become evocative references of the trend. This virality amplified by Tiktok algorithm then encloses these young girls in biased cognitive bubbles, which validate deleterious practices for their health.
Simplifying representations
If this trend ” skinny It is rarely questioned by followers, it is undoubtedly because the content disseminated appear to be simple to understand and that they benefit from a visual validation of the exposed bodies.
They are anchored in naive knowledge that come up against scientific knowledge, perceived as more complex and less easy to implement in the daily experience of adolescent girls to quickly obtain the expected bodily result for the summer.
In cognitive psychology, naive knowledge is defined as spontaneous and implicit representations that individuals are built on the world, often from childhood, without recourse to formalized lessons. Influenced by personal and social experiences, they can be useful for navigating everyday, because they appear to be functional and coherent in the individual. On the other hand, they are often partial, simplifying or even false.
However, this naive knowledge constitutes the crucible of messages disseminated by creators of content on social networks. In particular, on Tiktok, broadcast videos seek to capture the attention of Internet users, favoring a strong emotional connotation to cause an exponential virality. The information transmitted is based on a well -known principle in marketing: a repeated exposure of messages, whatever the cognitive value, influences behavior.
Learn to detect false information
These simplifying beliefs are all the more difficult to deconstruct since they benefit from collective approval, visible in the form of ” likes By all subscribers. It therefore appears necessary to bring to light the role played by naive knowledge in adolescent girls' body education in order to better understand why some of them are more vulnerable than others to this type of injunctions and set up targeted interventions.
In addition, naive knowledge is often resistant to change and scientific discourse. It is then a question of revisiting these cognitive shortcuts, based on erroneous causal links (of the type: “I do not eat and I will be happy this summer”), by offering prevention messages more suited to this digital generation.
To go in this direction, some health professionals speak on social networks, but the scope of their discourse still seems limited to the view of the virality aroused by this trend. Faced with this observation, it seems appropriate to invite them to take ownership of digital communication codes to display themselves as figures of authority in terms of health on Tiktok.
More generally, it is neither a question of demonizing Tiktok nor advocating the return to an era without social networks. These platforms are also spaces for creation, expression and socialization for young people. But for the knowledge they disseminate to become real emancipation tools rather than sources of social pressure, several levers must be activated:
- Regulate, encourage more platforms to moderate risky content for the mental and physical health of young people;
- Teaching adolescents to detect false evidence on social networks. In this perspective, our Meals-Manger project with social networks aims to co-construct with young people an approach allowing them to acquire and exercise a critical spirit in the face of risky content for their health, to which they are exposed on social platforms;
- Educate educators (parents and teachers) who are often little informed about the accounts followed by adolescents and have difficulty establishing a link between naive knowledge disseminated on social networks and behaviors adopted in real life.
With an unwavering passion for local news, Christopher leads our editorial team with integrity and dedication. With over 20 years’ experience, he is the backbone of Wouldsayso, ensuring that we stay true to our mission to inform.
